WEBVTT - Jeff Bhasker 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.680 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Stage podcast. 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:18.640 My guest today he's musician, songwriter producer Jeff Baskar. Jeff 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:24.320 has worked with Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:29.080 the Rolling Stone. Even hear him on Uptown Funk with 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.840 Mark Ronson. Jeff, So good to have you, honor to 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.800 be here, Bob. So, what's up. You moved to Big Sir. Well, 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.400 I'm in the process of setting up a studio there 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:45.600 and having a kind of sanctuary, if you will, outside 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.280 of Los Angeles kind of recently after the pandemic, started 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.720 doing more traveling again and realizing how much I missed that, 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:59.400 how much I loved being in different places and being 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:01.760 in different and vironments. And you know, and you mentioned 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.319 Kanye like we you used to do these excursions in 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:10.240 Hawaii or Wyoming and these really beautiful, uh stunning places 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.200 of nature, venues of nature. So I came across this 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.800 property in Big Sir and jumped on it because it 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:20.240 just checked so many boxes for me. Um. Yeah, and 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:24.000 I'm looking I'm looking forward to to sharing not only 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:28.560 musical experiences but also kind of in the tradition of 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:36.560 Big sir, all kinds of human potential, meditation, health, wellness experiences. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.000 So there's my plug from my my new studio. Come 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.440 come work with me. Okay, you have a studio, but 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.480 it's a studio part of your house or part of 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:49.240 your properties. Yeah, it's actually a really amazing compound that 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:56.280 the studio was built by the former owner, uh, in 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:01.160 collaboration with an architect. Hey, Mickey Munich was known for 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.320 uh designing all the structures on the post ranch in 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.120 and all throughout Big Sir. He's kind of this like 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:13.280 organic modernist and uh, it's an amazing facility that yeah, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.600 just it just kind of was kind of too good 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:17.440 to be true. And it's in an interesting, such a 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.840 beautiful setting. So yeah, it's it's gonna be. It's a 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.640 compound of all those kind of things. Okay, you know 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:28.679 the road constantly gets closed, etcetera. Why Big sur is 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.200 opposed to anywhere else and you think people will come? Um, 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.480 I mean, good question. You know It's funny when I 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.959 when I first came across this place, UM, I asked 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:43.640 myself the same question. UM, and I think maybe maybe 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:49.320 part of the answer is that, um, those who want 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.480 to be there will come. And that's kind of been 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.079 part of my producer practice, or at least something I've 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.280 learned over the years is I do my best work 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.359 when the when, and it's uh, it's kind of meant 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:03.520 to be, you know, like people are coming to get 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.640 from me what they want from me and I and 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.919 I give that so we'll see, you know. Otherwise I'll 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:10.680 just be up there drinking my well water and looking 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.160 at the at the incredible view and uh, I hope 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.240 you'll come up. That's how this came about, right, I 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:18.160 sent you the emails had come to Big sir. I 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.560 just got inspired. I haven't been to Big Surf for 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.040 a while, so, uh, you know, it's really a great 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.360 place right over there over the ocean. Remember driving up 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.640 Highway One really fucked up out of my mind. I'm stunned. 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:31.880 I'm still here arguing with my girlfriend at the same 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:36.680 time in the car. But forgetting that. You also email 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.600 me about new music. What is the state of new 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:45.160 music today where you do most of your work? Right? Well, yeah, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.280 I mean I'm not gonna say I have my some 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:56.280 like exclusive on that topic, but I mean I will 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.640 tell you kind of on the same vein of like 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.000 the post pandemic. You know, like I became a father 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.160 about six years ago, and at that time, uh, I 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.280 kind of took a break. I've been working hard. I've 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:10.960 done a lot of music, done a lot of records, 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.800 really fulfilled a lot of dreams of mine that were 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.760 way beyond what I ever thought I would accomplish. And 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.680 you know, it took the time out to kind of 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.720 settle into parenthood adulthood. And after a year or two, 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.200 I came back in and low and behold, like music 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.720 really changed a lot. You know, Streaming started to take hold, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.440 social media started to take hold. There's all these new artists, 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.440 Like the turnover kind of happened, and I I was 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.599 starting to feel quite old and left out and and 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.160 not connected to the quote unquote culture. And you know, 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.440 like this young Thug record that I did with Nate 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.279 and we performed on Saturday Night Live Going, you know, 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.600 they invited We had been talking all pandemic about doing 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:58.120 something together and then finally there was an opportunity where 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.560 they invited us to come to Atlanta, Nate and I 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:06.719 and being in the room with Thug, Gonna Metro Booming, 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.840 Charlie Handsome, all these kind of like young lions or 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.080 not so young lions anymore, because they're also kind of 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.920 approaching thirty right like, and they're becoming adults. They're kind 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:26.880 of coming into a more complete holistic all such talented, 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.240 brilliant guys. It really reminded me of like, you know, 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.120 I got my start in jazz and that was what 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.040 really turned me onto music. It reminded me of that 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.240 feeling and that culture and and and and Black culture 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.880 being immersed in that. That's really where my heart is. 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:48.440 Um So to your question, you know, the state of 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.120 it after kind of kind of being feeling quite disconnected 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.200 from you, come on, father, You're not up in the 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.280 club anymore. You're not out in the streets, so to speak, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.000 to connect with those guys and also feel like their 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:06.160 admiration and respect for me and what how I had 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.040 influenced them through my work with Kanye and beyond, you know, 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.160 like We Are Young. It's kind of like an amazingly 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:17.320 embraced record in uh, you know, Travis Scott posted this 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.160 this very viral video of him rocking out till We 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.560 Are Young in the club and and that was specifically 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.840 like engineered when we made that record, I was like, 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:28.440 I specifically, we need black people to funk with this 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:30.880 album in this band, and you know that kind of 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:36.760 gulf between white indie music, indie rock, and black music, 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.080 you know. So that was like a really exciting moment 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.760 for me and then to kind of reconnect with those 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.160 guys and feel the energy and the creativity. And in 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.760 Atlanta also, which I had where had not spent a 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:54.000 lot of time. Um, to get back to the question 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.279 what is the state of new music? You know, I 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:01.240 think it's incredibly vibrant and um, I think you could 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:06.240 compare it to the advent of rock and roll, pre beatles, 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:11.400 you know, the way black musicians were creating a genre 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:17.160 that was mysterious, kind of opaque to the outside ear, 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:22.840 but exciting, dangerous and cool above all else. Right, Because 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:24.560 at the end of the day, if you can boil 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:29.160 anything down to its essence that matters. It's coolness, right, 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:36.000 And that's what music. That's why Apple Tech, anyone, actors, uh, 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.560 finance bros. They all want to be in music, because 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.600 why because it's cool? Right. So I think there's like 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:48.120 a I was so pleasantly, um kind of moved, to 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:50.560 be honest, It was just such a wonderful experience to 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:56.120 feel the potency expertise. Mike Will made it as another guy. 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.920 It's I've known for a long time that we kind 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.320 of connected more and more recently, and just to see 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:05.680 how formidable these guys are musically, I think the state 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.400 of new music is in awesome hands. Not to mention, 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:13.080 I mean, um, the empowerment that all these tools like 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.320 YouTube and being able to publish your own music, to 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.080 create your own music, you know. I think there's a 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.440 lot of on the other side talk about how it's 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.400 kind of made music horrible, um, and it makes it 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.720 too easy, which are there are some valid points to that, 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.720 but I think the counterpoint to that is it's also 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.440 been incredibly empowering. That's how I started producing because I 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.160 was in jazz. I wanted to be a jazz arranger 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.560 and a composer, and I had to write out these 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.200 goddamn big band charts and my wrist is about to 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:45.560 break with my calligraphy pen, and I started using the 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:49.480 computer to print out the sheet music and then it 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.480 would play the music back to me. Also, um, and 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:55.719 that was an empowering moment to be able to not 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.320 have to write all these charts out get a band together, 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.800 have them butcher it and actually hear my music. So 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:09.240 short answer, it's incredibly vibrant. And I think also at 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.400 a tipping point where we're about to see and hear 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:17.000 what's next. There hasn't been on next in a while, right, 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:22.800 so I think they're also the youth is a is 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.200 really getting tired of the robot music and the computer music, 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.960 and they want to hear some really vibrant musical organic 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.959 uh substance, and where I think we're about to feel 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:38.040 that what is the Jeff Baskers special sauce? What are 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.559 people looking for when they want to work with you? 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.400 I mean, I'll flip it on its head and maybe 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.920 this is what they're looking for. Is I want to 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.679 know what they're looking for and I can. I mean, 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:50.920 as a producer, you know, I have a few different 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.840 mode modes. You know. Sometimes I'm a creator. You know 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:56.800 a lot of the music I did with Kanye or 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.640 Rihanna or Beyonce or Alicia Keys, I created all that music. 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.679 I wrote it from scratch. I played all the instruments, 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:11.000 I wrote the lyrics, I sang the demo, and I 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:18.440 have a very strong creative identity and potency. But as 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:24.040 a producer. My ultimate scenario is when someone comes to 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:28.280 me and knows exactly what they want to do. UM, 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.280 and it's not about my sauce, but it's, uh, maybe 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:32.920 it is my sauce, you know. I mean, I'll give 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.520 you one example, like with Some Nights, which is about 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.520 to turn ten years old. I think um or may 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.120 have recently, you know, and and the the incredible Nate 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.160 Rus you know, who kind of sought me out when 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.320 he wanted to add a bit more of an urban 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:56.200 MPC driven texture to his music UM and started listening 0:10:56.240 --> 0:11:00.000 to a lot of urban music quote unquote urban mus 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.400 uzic and just my name started popping up on the 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.840 credits a lot, and so he sought me out. And 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.000 you know, I you know, it's been documented in many 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.920 interviews how I turned him down multiple times until he 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.760 kind of just by force of will collaborate with me 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:16.640 and saying me, we are young in my hotel room, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.040 and I booked a studio the next day and I 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.720 was like, we're recording this. That just made my life 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.000 so easy. UM. And in that case, I think it's 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.520 you know, a real maybe maybe I'm gonna guess I 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.920 haven't really contemplated this before, but I can say for 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.680 sure that you know, when I make a record, I 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.439 have a very specific goal. I want to reach into 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:41.560 your chest and rip your heart out, you know. I 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:46.240 want to make music that moves people emotionally as a 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.880 life changing moment. I want my music to be on 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.280 the level of you lost that love and feeling or 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.679 um you know, uh nothing compares to you. You know, 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:02.240 so I have a very strong emotional uh component to 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:09.000 my music that perhaps that's what people uh resonate with. 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.440 You know, our people are you having? Do you have 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.600 enough of the name that it's always people seeking out 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:17.839 you or do you ever say, hey, I want to 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.040 work with that person and you reach out, you know, 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.800 and not not because I don't want to, but I 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.600 have you know, I got kind of I hit a 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:31.080 magic moment from working with Kanye, right, Like that was 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.600 the moment when and it's still true to some extent, 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.920 like he's got the mightas touched Like if you get 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.880 the Kanye stamp of approval, love him or hate him 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:44.560 or whatever controversies surrounding him at the moment, it's pretty undeniable. 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.559 He's a genius and an incredible curator of talent. So 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:53.040 I was very fortunate to kind of springboard from working 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.280 with him two and being able to work with and 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.760 having worked with every all of the most amazing talented 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:06.520 people to then leaving his camp and going right into 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.880 Some Nights with Nate, which was like a huge album 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.319 at the time, right it was. They were like nominated 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.280 Best they won Grammy Best New Artist and we won 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:17.960 Best Song and it was like a big moment. So 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.120 after that that led to like the Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.120 uh you know. Um Bruno I had known since he 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:30.000 was seventeen years old, had moved to l A and 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.480 that's when I got my first placement on the game's 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.360 first album, and Mike Lynn, who used to be Dr 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.600 Dre's and R, said hey, I just signed this kid 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.040 from Hawaii. Should work with him. And then I went 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.839 and did my Kanye thing and then he became Bruno Mars. 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.360 But then that's how I met Mark Ronson because he 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.240 said for my second album, I want you and Mark 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.439 to produce it, and then that became an you know, 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:56.000 I'm the huge fan of Marks and um Um. It 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.840 was just kind of a flow of being kind of 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:06.440 lead to these opportunities and now much more recently, I'm 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:13.319 kind of seeking out talent and and not even really actively, 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.000 but you know, I really do kind of try to 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.640 like stay within myself and then see what opportunities come 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:21.760 my way. And a lot of opportunities do come my 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.000 way where I think it's a little bit of the 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.680 name recognition or my past achievements that people want me 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:30.840 to work with them or a and our guys or 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.200 label heads want me to work with someone, but it's 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.560 maybe not exactly for the right reasons. Then I'll get 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.160 in the room and they'll be, well, can you make 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.040 it sound a little more like this? And I'm like, actually, no, 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:42.880 I can't. Like I'm me. You know that took me 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:44.880 a while to kind of realize that, because I do 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.640 also stretch myself and want to I'm so curious about 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.920 all kinds of genres and I want to explore them 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:52.800 and I want to I love learning and I love 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:58.400 appreciating all kinds of different music. But you know, to 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.080 be honest, it's usually kind of just to letting the 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.560 universe guide what comes my way and trying to say 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:07.760 this is the right project for me right now. You 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:12.760 mentioned working with Beyonce and Kanye, were you essentially at 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.240 a completed song today's song credits? Canna have fifteen writers 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.880 on a song, Let's be specific. You know you're telling 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:22.320 me you write these songs, but if you look at 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.000 the credits or all these other things, So what is 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.680 it that you do and what is it that they do? Well? 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.400 I mean, it can it can be different scenarios can 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.000 be different things, right. I'm kind of at the beginning 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:38.120 when I wasn't anybody nobody knew my name or wanted 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.200 to place my music. I was sitting at home making 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.360 these songs. That was kind of how it started. And 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.920 then you get into like, hey, say like Uptown Funk right, 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.200 Like there's a good example kind of in the middle 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:54.960 where the credits are gonna say Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:16:01.120 Philip Lawrence, Jeff Basker, um and uh and then the 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:06.800 Gap band after the lawsuit. But um, you know, that's 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.120 an amazing thing in music too, is that you can 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:13.480 collaborate and have a I think sometimes in in l 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:20.880 A there's like the the publishing uh session shuffle right 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.360 where everyone gets in a room and there's a hundred 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.920 rooms in l A where everyone's right in the same song, right, um, 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.640 But then there's like you find your collaborator, right, like 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:35.120 you've Paul McCartney and John Lennon, right make Jagger and 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.440 Keith Richards. You find that foil that the dark and 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.400 the light, the push and the pull that kind of 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.520 bring the best out of each other. And in some 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.520 cases that might be three or four or five people, right. 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.880 Or in hip hop, it used to be like the 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.440 producer made the beat and the rapper wrapped on it. 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.680 They're writing the song, they're creating this song. Then it 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.280 kind of turned into like okay, like may you've got 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:02.200 a keyboard player came in and played some things, and 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:07.400 it's it starts becoming very not democratic, but like it's 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.320 a kind of an equality where whoever contributed what deserves 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.120 some writing credit. I think like the the structure and 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:21.679 the the litigious nature of publishing and how it was 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.320 created used to be very used to be like the 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.480 melody and the lyrics, right, So there was kind of 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.479 definitions that have warped and changed over time. So in 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.760 some cases I write the whole song. In some cases 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.040 someone might have all complete song written and I might say, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.520 you know what you need, like a melodic cook here 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:42.640 and then I write this melodic cook and I get 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.919 my little five percent or something. But every situation is different, 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.600 and you know, when you talk to painters or people 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:57.240 in different artistic disciplines, being able to collaborate like that 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.399 is not It just doesn't exist. And and collaboration is 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.400 one of the beautiful things about music. So a lot 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.879 of times I think maybe in cases where people are like, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.879 oh my god, today's music is just written by by committee, 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.520 by twenty people, it's like, that's also called collaboration, you know, 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.920 in collaboration is a beautiful thing, having a conversation, talking, 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.400 bouncing ideas off of each other, someone being there when 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:25.359 you're alone and you're saying, oh, that's a stupid idea. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.280 I don't want to say that, and someone's like, no, no, no, no, 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.800 that's a great line. That's great. You need that. And 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:35.280 you get elevated, uh content and creative fruit out of 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.359 situations like that. Right, So that's kind of kind of 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:50.160 one take on that question. So you're born in Kansas City, Kansas, 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.399 and for those of us have been to Kansas, really 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.160 the Kansas City we think of his Missouri, not Kansas City, Kansas. 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.560 And you grow up in New Mexico. Give me the 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.280 backs story and all that. Yeah, well, I mean take 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.040 it even back before that. You know, my dad's a 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.280 from from India, from northern from fron job Lahore as 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.199 a matter of fact, where which is now Pakistan. And 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.960 our family had to flee Pakistan during the partition because 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.199 we're Hindu. And then my grandfather moved to the United 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:24.359 States to study psychiatry at the Manager Institute in I 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.720 believe it's in Topeka, Kansas. So my dad came to 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.359 the United States as like an eight year old brown 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.920 Indian kid dropped in the fifties in the Midwest in Kansas. 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:37.840 He ended up going both my parents went to KU 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.840 University and my dad graduated from KU Medical School, which 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.600 is in Kansas City, Kansas, whereas the hospital I was born. 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.439 So that's how I wound up in Kansas. Then he 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:50.760 my mom went to high school in New Mexico and 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.040 my my dad had to do his residency. He did 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.120 it for like the Health Service and Indian Reservations and 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.959 they moved to New Mexico and then they got divorced 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:00.320 when I was about five years old old. So I 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.280 kinda went back and forth, but mainly grew up. Grew 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.880 up in New Mexico in a little town called Sokoro, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.720 which was an awesome place to grow up, and it 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.359 was about like ten thousand people. But we got the 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:14.080 v l A there. I don't know if you've, like 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.480 you've seen the movie Contact, when Jodie Foster is in 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.760 this big satellite. It raised the most powerful radio telescope. 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.760 So you have all these astrophysicists, Carl Sagan, all these 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.560 this beautiful horizon, all this space, and you know that 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.000 kind of really influenced my sound too. I think like 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.520 I was really into Pink Floyd like when I when 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:34.520 I was one of the first things, like when I 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:36.879 really started like getting in the headphones and just listening 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:44.280 to music and this very expansive wide uh sound. You know, 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:49.879 it's kind of similar to the visual landscape and um 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.520 you know, like think of like shine on you, crazy Diamond. 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.320 You know that's like a New Mexico sky and desert. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:59.280 So that was kind of my childhood. Then I discovered jazz. 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:02.760 My mom kind and my mom's families from Ohio, like Pennsylvania, 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.000 Dutch Ohio family that and her dad kind of played 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:10.480 by ear like Oregon and trombone and really talented actually, Um, 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:12.239 and then my mom could kind of play these like 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.679 jazzy arrangements, you know. She used to play like tenderly, 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.320 you know. And and I was here these like chords 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.800 like what is that? You know? And I'm growing up 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.240 also listening to the BGS and Kiss and uh Empire 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.440 strikes Back soundtrack. That was my That was my record 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:28.280 collection when I was a little kid. I had the 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:35.119 Muppet Show Empire Strikes Back and Uh Kiss Destroyer, you know. 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.399 And I got to meet Bob Ezrian actually he reached 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.040 out to me when we did some nights. I was 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.280 super awesome and had dinner with him and Alice Cooper, 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:48.639 Um but one of my heroes, and UM discovered jazz 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.399 checked out an album from the library of Miles Davis, 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:53.240 and then I was just hooked and just got everything 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:57.399 that Miles Davis ever did, and and also whoever worked 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.280 with him. I just started listening to all that and 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:01.920 I fell in love with jazz. Played in my high 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.680 school jazz band, and I spent a year in Germany 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:08.800 as an exchange student, got some more opportunities to see 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:13.199 more music and have better teachers that weren't available to 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:14.919 me in New Mexico and then I went to Berkeley 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.359 College of Music. But you know, it's kind of like 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.639 a nice place to have just the silence of your 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:22.400 own thoughts. And also kind of had like a bit 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.800 of a rough childhood, you know, with my parents divorce 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:27.600 and everything, and music has always been like a really 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:36.600 important emotional outlet for me to kind of process uh things. Um, 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.920 but I didn't have the kind of cultural richness that 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:45.119 maybe other places, like you know, Mike mark Ronson, you know, 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.359 like he really kind of brought me into this world 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.200 of culture and took me under his wing and introduced 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:53.080 me to everyone. And you know, he is just the 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:59.840 consummate gentleman of ficionado cultured guy. Um And I think 0:22:59.880 --> 0:23:02.320 he even kind of mentioned once we're talking on this topic, 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:04.400 it's like, you know, you're just thirsty for it. So 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:06.560 now I'm in this phase. And like with Kanye, like 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.919 he's such a just such a just a cultured person, 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.760 you know, but similar from the Midwest, you know, like 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:16.000 we kind of had that simpatico, kind of down to 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:21.960 earth Midwestern nous mixed with this really highbrow kind of 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:26.679 space in our practice. Um. So that's kind of my story. 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:30.000 How do your parents meet and to either of them 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.199 get remarried? Do you have any siblings? Yeah, so my 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:37.159 mom got remarried briefly. They met at at university. My 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:41.320 mom was married briefly to another dentist. She's a dentist 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:45.000 in Colorado, and my dad's a physician and he got remarried. 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:47.280 And I do have two step sisters and a half 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:50.119 brother and a half sister who we all grew up 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:53.040 in the same household, so you know, we're pretty close. 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:55.159 And you know, we were like a real family with 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:59.320 all of our fighting and being sleeping on top of 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:01.639 each other and go on ski trips in the suburban 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:04.680 and uh breaking down on the side of the road, 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:06.480 and I had a reel. So I went from being 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:08.680 like an only child to having like being the oldest 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:12.560 of all these siblings. So yeah, okay, wait, hey, why 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:16.600 were we all living in the house and be we're 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:21.200 exactly is this in New Mexico? So it's like south 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:25.120 of Albuquerque due south on Oh wow, so like it's 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:27.280 like in the middle of the state basically, So it's 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.120 kind of between like uh, truth or consequences in Albuquerque, 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:36.760 you know, like right dead smack in the middle. Um, yeah, 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:38.560 like kind of on the Santa Fe trail and Rio 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:41.119 Grand Rio Grand just follows right straight down, and so 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:43.960 it's like Rio Grand Valley, Okay, and you're all living 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:46.360 in the same house. Explained that to me. Well, when 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.240 my dad remarried, she had two kids, they had two 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:51.399 more kids, and I was living with them. Okay, so 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:53.240 you were living with your dad, not with your mother. 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:56.320 I lived with my mom until I was eight, Um, 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:01.280 and then I uh, you know, my parents were married 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:02.920 until I was five. So I lived with my mom 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:05.080 for three years and then and then I moved back 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:08.760 with my dad when I was eight years old. Um, 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:11.040 you know, I think it was like that age where 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:13.280 I started getting a little bit of like trouble at school. 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:17.280 I was having like uh yeah, I was having I 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:18.840 was having like a tough time, and I think my 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:20.879 mom was like, I think the phrase she uses like, 0:25:20.880 --> 0:25:22.480 I think it's time for you to move with your dad. 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:25.320 Because I was getting a little and she was also graduated, 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:27.639 she wasn't met, she was in dental school. She was 0:25:27.680 --> 0:25:31.000 kind of having a tough time, and um, it was 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:34.920 just like the right time for me to live with him, 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.840 and and definitely kind of instilled a little more of 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:40.720 that like Indian discipline in me when I needed it. 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:43.600 And and also like you know, young young boy, you 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:45.239 want to live with your dad, You're kind of like 0:25:45.320 --> 0:25:49.240 having that kind of feeling like, um, he's like your hero. 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:52.919 And and then shortly after that he met his current 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:56.200 wife and she had two kids, and it was like whoa, 0:25:56.440 --> 0:25:59.840 this is like a, this is not exactly what I 0:25:59.880 --> 0:26:03.560 had in mind. But and then they had two kids. 0:26:03.600 --> 0:26:05.800 But you know, we worked it out. We we we 0:26:05.800 --> 0:26:08.640 we uh. We had a lot of ups and downs 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.080 and and that's family life, right. So what kind of 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:14.320 kid were you? Good in school? Bad at school? A 0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:17.040 lot of friends, loner. I was good at school, but 0:26:17.200 --> 0:26:19.720 kind of definitely like always through the outsider or the 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:22.280 marginal man, as my dad puts it, you know, like 0:26:22.359 --> 0:26:24.639 he I think he felt like that, being like a 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:28.359 Indian kid in America and never really belonged anywhere, but 0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:32.280 you kind of can fit in a lot of places. Um. Yeah, 0:26:32.280 --> 0:26:35.800 I lived in Colorado. I was a little more dark skin, 0:26:36.000 --> 0:26:39.240 not this kind of blonde Colorado kid named Kyle or something, 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:42.679 and like I didn't quite fit in there. And then 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:44.640 I moved to New Mexico, and I'm the gringo because 0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:47.160 everyone's like Hispanic and like I'm like, now I'm too white. 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:50.199 So but I definitely kind of got a lot. I 0:26:50.320 --> 0:26:52.920 had the advantage my dad's like been a long time 0:26:52.960 --> 0:26:54.679 doctor in the community, has also been the mayor for 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:57.280 thirty years, so he's like a very well liked guy, 0:26:57.960 --> 0:27:02.240 and so I definitely league fit into being like, oh, 0:27:02.359 --> 0:27:04.840 your doctor Basker's son. You know, Everyone's like treated me 0:27:04.880 --> 0:27:06.359 so nice, and it was so nice growing up in 0:27:06.400 --> 0:27:09.119 a in a small town where everyone knows you. But 0:27:09.680 --> 0:27:12.919 at the same time, like even to this day, and 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:16.199 it's funny I look back on like like I was 0:27:16.200 --> 0:27:19.560 taking French lessons during the pandemic, and I was I 0:27:19.960 --> 0:27:22.239 was always a good student in school, and like, you know, 0:27:22.400 --> 0:27:24.919 it was like second in my class and and like 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:33.520 very achievement oriented and I love learning too, so um, 0:27:33.560 --> 0:27:37.280 but when I went back into French class, I noticed 0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:40.600 how unorganized I was and my notes and everything, and 0:27:40.840 --> 0:27:43.480 I had this image of myself as being this real academic, 0:27:43.640 --> 0:27:48.840 good student. But it reminded me I just do everything 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:51.119 by ear. It's like how I do music. You know, 0:27:51.320 --> 0:27:53.520 I didn't learn how to read music. I can read music, 0:27:53.560 --> 0:27:56.640 but everything I do in life I do by ear. 0:27:56.960 --> 0:27:59.840 I listen, I take it in, I process it on 0:27:59.880 --> 0:28:05.160 the fly. And that is kind of also it made 0:28:05.240 --> 0:28:07.920 me think made me think about how like the more 0:28:07.960 --> 0:28:10.640 you learn about yourself and how you behave and learn 0:28:11.840 --> 0:28:15.440 made me realize how like I'm the kind of person 0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:19.000 like I'll meet someone and five seconds later I can't 0:28:19.040 --> 0:28:22.040 remember their name because it was like my dad introducing 0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:27.639 me to people and I I was like, I was 0:28:27.720 --> 0:28:29.720 just like block it out or something, you know, like 0:28:29.760 --> 0:28:32.160 you're in your own world and and uh, I mean 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:33.760 it's something that I'm working on, but I think it's 0:28:33.760 --> 0:28:37.160 also super interesting, like the more I learned about myself 0:28:37.240 --> 0:28:39.120 and how I am and in embracing that, you know, 0:28:39.120 --> 0:28:40.600 instead of kind of thing like, oh I need to 0:28:41.040 --> 0:28:42.640 I need to work on that or that's like a 0:28:43.200 --> 0:28:46.880 like a like an Achilles heel or something. But I 0:28:46.920 --> 0:28:48.800 was kind of like that I had and I'm still 0:28:48.800 --> 0:28:50.680 like that. I have kind of a tight group of friends, 0:28:50.720 --> 0:28:55.160 but I'm not necessarily the most social person or um 0:28:55.720 --> 0:28:58.600 post COVID changed out a lot, like I was like, wow, 0:28:58.680 --> 0:29:01.640 I forgot I really like being social. I or it's 0:29:01.640 --> 0:29:03.719 so nice. Not that I like it, but I like 0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:06.640 to connect with people. I love connecting with people, and 0:29:06.680 --> 0:29:12.200 I love, um being inspired by people, and and have 0:29:12.400 --> 0:29:14.800 learned from some of the most inspiring people that I 0:29:14.840 --> 0:29:18.720 know to listen more, to be the one asking the questions, 0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:21.640 not just going on and on like I am right now. 0:29:21.840 --> 0:29:24.600 But um, it's an interview, so I guess that's okay, Yeah, 0:29:24.640 --> 0:29:29.040 it's about you. Well why did you start taking French lessons? Well, 0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:31.960 my girlfriend really wanted to move to France, so it 0:29:32.040 --> 0:29:34.160 was just something we were doing together and my my 0:29:34.240 --> 0:29:36.840 son was possibly going to go to like a French school, 0:29:36.920 --> 0:29:38.440 which I was just like, I had no idea why 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:41.000 we were going to do that, but um so I 0:29:41.200 --> 0:29:44.040 just just something to do. So how far did you get? 0:29:44.160 --> 0:29:47.760 I mean, can you speak French? Read French? No? No, 0:29:48.000 --> 0:29:52.760 I can say Bonvon s Cajura said, you know, like 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:54.480 I can do some super basics. It was nice to 0:29:54.560 --> 0:29:57.200 learn how to like pronounce things and and I can 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:00.320 speak German from being my my exchange How you end 0:30:00.360 --> 0:30:02.920 up being an exchange student? What was that like? Yeah? 0:30:02.920 --> 0:30:04.960 So so in my school, like this French teacher and 0:30:05.000 --> 0:30:07.760 the German teacher were the same guy Mr Sylvester uh 0:30:07.760 --> 0:30:11.320 in Coral High School. So every year would be like 0:30:11.920 --> 0:30:14.920 depending on what year you went into school, it would 0:30:14.920 --> 0:30:18.080 be like German one, French to German three. Then it 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:21.560 would be like next year would be French one, German two, 0:30:21.800 --> 0:30:24.200 French three. So the year I got in, you know, 0:30:24.320 --> 0:30:26.000 you know you want to take a foreign language, right, 0:30:27.080 --> 0:30:30.920 I got in, it was German. And then one year 0:30:31.280 --> 0:30:34.239 there was a sign on the wall that was like 0:30:34.320 --> 0:30:37.719 this Bundestalk Exchange, right, they picked a hundred kids from America, 0:30:37.800 --> 0:30:41.320 hundred kids from It was during the reunification of Germany 0:30:41.400 --> 0:30:44.280 the year that I went um and as a government 0:30:44.360 --> 0:30:46.800 exchange program where they paid for everything. I had to do, 0:30:46.840 --> 0:30:49.520 all these interviews I had to I had to basically 0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:52.239 win and be like one of two kids they got 0:30:52.320 --> 0:30:54.400 picked from New Mexico. They picked two from each state. 0:30:55.200 --> 0:30:56.880 And I just wanted to get the hell out of 0:30:56.880 --> 0:30:58.360 my town. I wanted to get the hell out of 0:30:58.400 --> 0:31:02.800 my fucked up family life and get away. And also 0:31:02.840 --> 0:31:05.920 I viewed if I could go to Germany, I would 0:31:05.920 --> 0:31:07.800 be able to go to jazz clubs and sit in 0:31:07.840 --> 0:31:10.360 and jam, and I might find a jazz piano teacher 0:31:10.480 --> 0:31:12.480 and exactly it's like a matter of fact, that's exactly 0:31:12.520 --> 0:31:15.080 what I did. And I would audition for these master 0:31:15.160 --> 0:31:17.480 classes at all these jazz festivals, and I would ride 0:31:17.480 --> 0:31:20.760 the train to Hamburg and go see all this jazz 0:31:20.880 --> 0:31:25.200 went Marsalis and John McLaughlin and Jack d Jeannette and Gary, 0:31:25.480 --> 0:31:29.160 Gary greg Osby and uh Gary Thomas, all these people 0:31:29.200 --> 0:31:31.880 that were kind of my heroes. So that's why I 0:31:31.920 --> 0:31:34.080 went and did it. And in the end it actually 0:31:34.240 --> 0:31:35.479 was you know, and I got to live with this 0:31:35.600 --> 0:31:39.360 wonderful family that was were farmers and just filled me 0:31:39.480 --> 0:31:42.000 full of love and supported me so much, and it 0:31:42.080 --> 0:31:46.120 was just a wonderful, wonderful year. So you're half South Asian. 0:31:46.600 --> 0:31:49.200 You talk about issues of fitting, kid, but after you 0:31:49.240 --> 0:31:54.120 get out of school, hey, you felt discrimination because it's 0:31:54.160 --> 0:31:57.240 not like, uh, there are a lot of South Asians 0:31:57.440 --> 0:32:00.640 in the popular music business in America. Yeah, and you 0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:03.080 wouldn't look at me and say, oh, you're Indian. I 0:32:03.120 --> 0:32:05.160 think I say, like maybe one out of twenty people 0:32:05.480 --> 0:32:09.800 can guess. They're gonna guess like Argentinean or Italian or 0:32:09.840 --> 0:32:13.280 Spanish or something. But um, it's funny. You know where 0:32:13.320 --> 0:32:15.640 you notice it is when you go to Europe, Like 0:32:15.680 --> 0:32:18.000 I had this gig in Switzerland one time, playing at 0:32:18.040 --> 0:32:21.560 the Ski area, and I gotta look from a guy. 0:32:21.680 --> 0:32:24.040 Or in Germany where there's a lot of Turkish immigrants, 0:32:24.280 --> 0:32:27.520 you know, you notice it much more in those places, 0:32:28.160 --> 0:32:33.880 feeling kind of a bit of this you're not white, 0:32:34.160 --> 0:32:36.719 you know, kind of this kind of more deeper like 0:32:36.920 --> 0:32:42.640 rooted racism than you even experience in America, uh, because 0:32:42.640 --> 0:32:46.479 there's more diversity, you know. On the flip side, it 0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:50.480 was really funny being like super into jazz, and you know, 0:32:50.640 --> 0:32:52.600 there's this kind of it's like a white man can't jump, 0:32:52.640 --> 0:32:55.640 It's like white man can't swing right. So in music 0:32:55.640 --> 0:33:00.200 school it would be like once the once uh the 0:33:00.240 --> 0:33:02.640 Brothers would find out I was half Indian, they'd say, oh, 0:33:02.680 --> 0:33:04.960 you're You're basically one of us, you know. So that 0:33:05.360 --> 0:33:07.560 was kind of my ticket into like being able to 0:33:07.640 --> 0:33:09.480 play with like the best guys and being kind of 0:33:09.480 --> 0:33:12.400 accepted and embraced by them. So it went both ways, 0:33:12.480 --> 0:33:16.360 you know. Um and and I think there is maybe 0:33:16.440 --> 0:33:19.800 some element to that, even if it's maybe subconscious. That definitely, 0:33:19.800 --> 0:33:24.600 like growing up, my dad spoke about uh us as 0:33:24.720 --> 0:33:27.120 not being white. You know, we'd refer to white people 0:33:27.200 --> 0:33:30.640 as the other and maybe he experienced that more. He 0:33:30.640 --> 0:33:33.360 doesn't really get into his childhood, and but I'm sure 0:33:33.360 --> 0:33:36.960 he must have felt that to some extent, and and 0:33:37.040 --> 0:33:40.680 maybe also why he settled in New Mexico where the 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:45.400 browner the better and there's a strong Hispanic influence there. 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:50.200 Um that also influenced me, I think in how I 0:33:50.320 --> 0:33:54.040 perceived myself, how I perceived where I fit into American culture, 0:33:54.320 --> 0:33:57.880 and how I view American history. And you know, for me, 0:33:58.440 --> 0:34:00.960 especially in jazz, like they teach you about the history 0:34:00.960 --> 0:34:02.760 of jazz and the blues and then it came from 0:34:02.800 --> 0:34:05.160 African slaves, and it's a very important part of your 0:34:05.200 --> 0:34:10.080 jazz education to understand the history of it. And I 0:34:10.200 --> 0:34:13.760 love under somewhere along the way, I've just been always 0:34:13.800 --> 0:34:16.839 piecing together like the history of the world, right, like 0:34:16.920 --> 0:34:18.640 how did we get here? And I think that's kind 0:34:18.640 --> 0:34:21.200 of what art is is always kind of this reflection 0:34:21.280 --> 0:34:26.160 of time periods, and production itself is stamps a time period, 0:34:26.280 --> 0:34:29.480 right Like you listen to Phil Spector, You're you're hearing 0:34:29.520 --> 0:34:31.560 the soundtrack to that. It's like seeing in black and 0:34:31.560 --> 0:34:39.279 white or something like um. And even musically, UM, I'm 0:34:39.320 --> 0:34:43.759 always conscious of where I where, what we're doing, where that, 0:34:44.000 --> 0:34:46.239 what's behind us and what's in front of us, Like 0:34:46.280 --> 0:34:48.239 we want to be on the cutting edge. We don't 0:34:48.280 --> 0:34:51.880 want to repeat ourselves. But you're aware of what is 0:34:52.360 --> 0:34:54.480 behind You know that that's maybe a bit that's a 0:34:54.480 --> 0:34:57.040 bit lost in today's music. To go back to kind 0:34:57.040 --> 0:35:02.040 of your what is the state of music? Of new music? 0:35:02.200 --> 0:35:06.000 You know that's a part that maybe yet on some 0:35:06.239 --> 0:35:09.960 levels it's it's kind of a perforated page. It's like 0:35:10.040 --> 0:35:12.239 some levels some people aren't thinking about it. And then 0:35:12.719 --> 0:35:15.400 sometimes you'd be surprised how much music these young people know, 0:35:15.520 --> 0:35:17.880 you know, or happened in hip hop? Right, People just say, oh, 0:35:18.040 --> 0:35:21.120 hip hop, that's not music, and they don't know about music. 0:35:21.120 --> 0:35:22.920 And I used to read that Keyboard magazine. There was 0:35:22.960 --> 0:35:26.160 like a magazine called Keyboard Magazine and this interview was 0:35:26.239 --> 0:35:29.440 interviewing Chuck d and he made this comment I remember 0:35:29.440 --> 0:35:34.040 in this article. He said, people say music isn't hip 0:35:34.040 --> 0:35:36.200 hop is in music? How come this guy knows more 0:35:36.200 --> 0:35:38.759 about music than I do? Because they went through all 0:35:38.800 --> 0:35:41.600 the records and they sampled everything, they read all the credits. 0:35:41.600 --> 0:35:44.400 They know, they know the music backwards and forwards, you know. 0:35:44.520 --> 0:35:48.439 So that's a big part of my practice is kind 0:35:48.440 --> 0:35:50.480 of not you know, and again like I do it 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:52.279 by ear. I'm not like this. I don't have a 0:35:52.320 --> 0:35:55.120 spreadsheet in my brain that knows all this stuff. I 0:35:55.160 --> 0:35:57.120 have some friends that are just you know, marks like that, 0:35:57.600 --> 0:36:00.799 even like diplos like that. You know. I have other 0:36:00.800 --> 0:36:03.600 friends my friend Ethan Alipat who does now Again records, 0:36:03.600 --> 0:36:07.040 and it's just this just just card catalog of like, oh, 0:36:07.080 --> 0:36:10.080 this is a brilliant, obscure music. I do it all 0:36:10.080 --> 0:36:13.040 by ear, but it's always on the forefront of my 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:17.080 practice to kind of at least on an approximate level, 0:36:17.480 --> 0:36:20.080 know where I am on the map and the continuum 0:36:20.120 --> 0:36:22.120 of music and art. So how do you end up 0:36:22.120 --> 0:36:25.839 going to Berkeley College or music And what was your 0:36:25.840 --> 0:36:32.080 experience there? Yeah, so, you know, being more academically oriented, 0:36:32.120 --> 0:36:35.040 but like being so interested in music, I didn't know 0:36:35.080 --> 0:36:37.400 if I had what it took to to have a 0:36:37.440 --> 0:36:39.839 career in music. And I used to go to these 0:36:39.880 --> 0:36:42.160 camps because they used to have these one week camp 0:36:42.200 --> 0:36:46.160 in Santa Fe and in my kid in my jazz 0:36:46.160 --> 0:36:48.759 band came back with this T shirt Berkeley Santa Fe Camp. 0:36:48.840 --> 0:36:51.520 I said, I want to go to that, and then 0:36:51.520 --> 0:36:55.160 they changed it to Los Angeles. So I went there 0:36:55.200 --> 0:36:57.680 three years and then the last year that I went, 0:36:58.600 --> 0:37:01.799 I said, and I'd go there and there's all these 0:37:01.840 --> 0:37:06.200 kids from l A. They're like ripping piano and it's like, oh, 0:37:06.440 --> 0:37:09.360 piano is actually my third instrument. I'm a trumpet player. 0:37:09.600 --> 0:37:12.120 And I'd be like, oh my god, Like I'm just like, oh, 0:37:12.239 --> 0:37:14.680 I don't this is not you know, I suck, you know, 0:37:14.719 --> 0:37:16.840 compared to these guys. They they have like three jazz 0:37:16.840 --> 0:37:20.040 bands in their high school. And um, so I said 0:37:20.040 --> 0:37:23.080 the last time, I said, well, if I get a scholarship, 0:37:23.120 --> 0:37:25.080 they'd give out these little scholarships at the end, like 0:37:25.120 --> 0:37:30.759 partial scholarships. And I did get a partial scholarship to 0:37:30.800 --> 0:37:33.520 go to Berkeley. So I decided I'd go, and I 0:37:33.640 --> 0:37:36.680 drove my car out there. I drove all by myself 0:37:36.719 --> 0:37:42.000 to Boston, and I and I slept on my dorm 0:37:42.000 --> 0:37:45.640 mattress without any sheets on it, and and uh, the 0:37:46.400 --> 0:37:50.360 the tuition hadn't didn't clear because I was like working 0:37:50.400 --> 0:37:52.120 that out for the rest of my dad had kicked 0:37:52.120 --> 0:37:53.920 me out of the house and I was just kind 0:37:53.960 --> 0:37:56.080 of on my own. But well, Why did your dad 0:37:56.160 --> 0:37:57.799 kick you out of the house. I don't know. That's 0:37:57.800 --> 0:37:59.600 a long story. Maybe we won't get into that one. 0:37:59.760 --> 0:38:03.080 Oh Okay, was it behavior or drugs? It was neither, 0:38:03.239 --> 0:38:05.280 to be honest, I was actually a real clean cut, 0:38:05.280 --> 0:38:07.080 pretty good kid. I think it had more to do 0:38:07.160 --> 0:38:13.080 with like some like uh inter family, like uh, it's 0:38:13.160 --> 0:38:15.320 kind of a personal thing. That's like it really didn't 0:38:15.320 --> 0:38:18.080 it really, to be honest, it just wasn't my fault. 0:38:18.239 --> 0:38:24.400 It was something that you know, like uh uh, maybe 0:38:26.320 --> 0:38:28.759 I didn't deserve to have happened to me, you know, 0:38:28.840 --> 0:38:31.759 but uh, anyway, we'll leave it at that. Okay, But 0:38:31.880 --> 0:38:34.080 just you're going to Berkeley, you take your car, you 0:38:34.120 --> 0:38:36.200 go to Boston. You're sleeping on the match without cheets. 0:38:36.480 --> 0:38:40.239 Is your father helping you out financially? My mom, my, mom, 0:38:40.320 --> 0:38:45.239 my mom, and my uncle took over and pitched in. Yeah. Um. 0:38:45.320 --> 0:38:47.000 And then I got there and like, you know, because 0:38:47.040 --> 0:38:49.640 I had this scholarship, I had to play in this 0:38:49.760 --> 0:38:53.960 scholarship ensemble, this Art Blakey jazz ensemble that was led 0:38:53.960 --> 0:38:56.080 by Billy Pierce, who was the tenor player in the 0:38:56.160 --> 0:38:59.120 Art Blakey band. When went Marcellis and Brandford Marsalis were 0:38:59.120 --> 0:39:01.759 in there, so this really amazing era of and then 0:39:01.800 --> 0:39:04.799 I remember this is still the era when like Branford 0:39:04.880 --> 0:39:07.640 was the house m D of The Tonight Show, Jett, 0:39:07.719 --> 0:39:10.640 Here's Harry Connick Jr. There was like Witten Marsalis is 0:39:10.640 --> 0:39:13.960 winning double Grammy's Classical and jazz Like these guys were 0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:16.680 still like superstars, right, Like jazz was still kind of 0:39:16.680 --> 0:39:20.120 in the forefront of American culture to some extent, which 0:39:20.120 --> 0:39:22.160 is I don't think is the same anymore. It's really interesting. 0:39:22.200 --> 0:39:24.680 I heard the interview did with m Jacob Collier. You know, 0:39:24.760 --> 0:39:27.960 I think it's really interesting the kind of subculture on Instagram, 0:39:27.960 --> 0:39:31.640 all these jazz uh people have. It's really inspiring. Another 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:34.640 another one like the current state of like music, so 0:39:34.680 --> 0:39:37.480 many look at that kid just just a genius, right, 0:39:38.200 --> 0:39:41.000 so everything I ever wanted to be in music, but 0:39:41.120 --> 0:39:45.600 now I'm me, which is cool too, um. But I 0:39:45.640 --> 0:39:48.480 got in there and just felt like such a fraud 0:39:48.520 --> 0:39:51.760 because these guys were just so killing. Like the bass player, 0:39:51.800 --> 0:39:54.080 this guy Ruben Rodgers, would get out of classes and 0:39:54.239 --> 0:39:55.920 I got to take the train down to New York. 0:39:56.040 --> 0:39:57.680 So I got a gig with Winton and I'd be 0:39:57.719 --> 0:40:01.360 like oh my fucking god, like I kill myself. But 0:40:01.840 --> 0:40:04.600 in the end, you know, like it was great because 0:40:04.719 --> 0:40:06.560 being going from being in Socora where I was like 0:40:06.560 --> 0:40:12.759 the superstar of music too being like the dumbest guy 0:40:12.760 --> 0:40:15.000 in the room, so to speak. It's just like the 0:40:15.000 --> 0:40:16.560 best place you want to be, right because that's how 0:40:16.600 --> 0:40:19.080 you learn being around this like the super inspiring people. 0:40:19.080 --> 0:40:22.120 And there's this there's this famous jazz club in Boston 0:40:22.120 --> 0:40:25.960 called Wally's which was like the first black owned uh 0:40:26.239 --> 0:40:28.480 jazz club where all the cats back in the day 0:40:28.480 --> 0:40:31.279 would go. And then even to that in that time 0:40:31.320 --> 0:40:33.560 and probably to this day when anyone's in town, they 0:40:33.560 --> 0:40:35.799 play it like I think it's Regatta Club is like 0:40:35.840 --> 0:40:38.319 the jazz club in Boston. And then and then they 0:40:38.320 --> 0:40:42.680 will sit in at Wali's after So I had I 0:40:42.800 --> 0:40:46.200 ended up getting the gig there with these friends of 0:40:46.239 --> 0:40:48.160 mine who are in this band Lettuce. I was in 0:40:48.200 --> 0:40:50.160 this band Lettuce. I don't know if you've ever heard Lettuce, 0:40:50.239 --> 0:40:53.279 It's like yeah, right, So that was kind of like 0:40:53.360 --> 0:40:57.319 my crew. And then we got a Sunday night. It 0:40:57.400 --> 0:41:00.359 was like Monday night was like I think Monday was 0:41:02.280 --> 0:41:06.160 what was it? Monday was blues Tuesday was Fusion, Wednesday 0:41:06.200 --> 0:41:09.279 was Fusion, Thursday was Latin, and Friday and Saturday was 0:41:09.360 --> 0:41:12.120 straight ahead and Sunday was fusion. And you call it 0:41:12.200 --> 0:41:14.719 the Sunday Night Band, Monday Night band, Tuesday Night Band 0:41:14.760 --> 0:41:16.640 was the night band. So I went from having the 0:41:16.719 --> 0:41:20.200 Tuesday Sunday Night Band two then I got called to 0:41:20.239 --> 0:41:23.279 be in Rubens Band and the Tuesday Night Band and 0:41:23.320 --> 0:41:25.720 the the first gig I remember he lent he leanked 0:41:25.760 --> 0:41:28.040 over to my shoulder right before the first hit and 0:41:28.080 --> 0:41:31.480 he said expect the unexpected, and I was like, oh, 0:41:31.600 --> 0:41:34.919 ship boom hit the But so I played three nights 0:41:34.920 --> 0:41:37.960 a week at Walies, you know, almost four hours a 0:41:38.080 --> 0:41:41.719 night for like five years. You know. That's where I 0:41:41.760 --> 0:41:45.000 really cut my teeth on being comfortable on stage and 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:48.920 improvising and listening and playing with like world class musicians, 0:41:49.000 --> 0:41:51.279 you know. So that was an awesome experience in in 0:41:51.320 --> 0:41:56.200 Berkeley and Boston, UM, but mostly Wallis was like the 0:41:56.239 --> 0:41:59.160 real education, you know. I mean, it was cool being 0:41:59.160 --> 0:42:03.400 in Berkeley, but it's mostly the environment and it's uh, 0:42:03.440 --> 0:42:05.840 you know, it's it's it's kind of a it's a 0:42:05.840 --> 0:42:07.960 bit of a business, you know, like they're kind of 0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:12.480 it's the largest music school, and you know, maybe it's 0:42:12.600 --> 0:42:16.359 not the seventies Berkeley that I had imagined, but at 0:42:16.360 --> 0:42:19.359 the same time, it was a wonderful time in my life. 0:42:19.360 --> 0:42:22.520 For sure. Did you graduate and you went in thinking 0:42:22.600 --> 0:42:25.360 you wanted to be X and you exited thinking you 0:42:25.400 --> 0:42:28.560 wanted to be what I went in exactly. I went 0:42:28.600 --> 0:42:29.960 in and I was like, Okay, I got a major 0:42:30.000 --> 0:42:32.520 in something. I'll major in education because I'm gonna need 0:42:32.520 --> 0:42:34.720 a job. What other degree is gonna help me out? 0:42:35.000 --> 0:42:39.040 And then I switched that to a double major in 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:44.799 jazz composition and music education. And then I had accumulated 0:42:44.840 --> 0:42:46.560 all these credits and I was like, Ship, I just 0:42:46.560 --> 0:42:48.680 want to get the funk out of here. Let me 0:42:48.760 --> 0:42:51.000 change to this major called professional music where you get 0:42:51.040 --> 0:42:53.319 to make your own curriculum, and I could take all 0:42:53.360 --> 0:42:56.560 those credits and just put them together. And I'm actually 0:42:56.640 --> 0:43:01.560 like one credit short of actually getting my paper. And 0:43:01.600 --> 0:43:04.000 I was like on the cover of Berkeley magazine they're 0:43:04.000 --> 0:43:07.560 always citing using my name as an alumni. Grammy awarding 0:43:07.600 --> 0:43:09.640 me asked me to do all this, Ship, I said, 0:43:09.640 --> 0:43:11.440 why did you just give me the degree? Like give 0:43:11.440 --> 0:43:14.480 me the it's like the credit I'm missing is some 0:43:14.560 --> 0:43:18.200 stupid thing like make a record, and I'm like, bro, 0:43:18.480 --> 0:43:22.399 like I I like it was the Producer of the Year. 0:43:22.440 --> 0:43:24.160 Do you want to maybe just give me the degree? 0:43:24.239 --> 0:43:25.880 I can't believe they are gonna make me take the 0:43:25.920 --> 0:43:28.920 fucking class. Can you believe that? Well? You know, I 0:43:29.160 --> 0:43:32.440 I gotta believe there's some way, assuming it's important to you, 0:43:32.440 --> 0:43:35.360 and I think maybe they're listening right now, is uh 0:43:35.520 --> 0:43:39.200 they should find some way to marry your experience with 0:43:39.280 --> 0:43:42.040 a thing and say, hey, yeah, do this. You know 0:43:42.080 --> 0:43:44.080 there's a way. That would have thought so I would 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:48.200 have thought. So they're hardcore man. It's like a it's 0:43:48.239 --> 0:43:51.040 like scientology or something like. You cannot break the rules. 0:43:51.560 --> 0:43:54.040 You gotta take that credit, you gotta pay that money. Okay, 0:43:54.120 --> 0:43:57.799 So how do you end your tenure Berkeley? And then 0:43:57.840 --> 0:44:01.160 what do you do? So I decided to move to 0:44:01.200 --> 0:44:03.359 New York because I had been kind of driving back 0:44:03.400 --> 0:44:06.080 and forth gigging down there, and at this point in time, 0:44:06.120 --> 0:44:08.520 you're done with Berkeley, what do you see your future as. 0:44:08.719 --> 0:44:10.919 That's when I started getting into production because I bought 0:44:10.920 --> 0:44:13.719 some recording equipment. I had an old like D A 0:44:13.880 --> 0:44:17.800 thirty digital eight track recorder and a couple of outboard effects, 0:44:18.280 --> 0:44:22.600 a s R ten, some keyboards, and I started making 0:44:22.640 --> 0:44:26.600 like R and B music and transferring from kind of 0:44:26.640 --> 0:44:29.800 like my jazz aesthetic and a ranger aesthetic and instead 0:44:29.880 --> 0:44:32.520 just recording the arrangement myself, you know, and kind of 0:44:32.520 --> 0:44:36.120 playing everything, sometimes really poorly. But that's the beauty of 0:44:36.160 --> 0:44:37.840 recording is you can kind of do it until you 0:44:37.880 --> 0:44:40.640 get it right, which is also an amazing practice. Right 0:44:40.680 --> 0:44:43.640 you're basically practicing and you're just recording it, listening back 0:44:43.640 --> 0:44:48.040 to it, critically, listening to it. Um So I had 0:44:48.040 --> 0:44:49.560 moved and I wanted to move to New York and 0:44:49.600 --> 0:44:53.200 pursue production more. You know, then you're gonna live on 0:44:53.239 --> 0:44:55.520 what So I worked in a wedding band. I worked 0:44:55.520 --> 0:44:57.919 in this incredible wedding band that was like all these 0:44:57.960 --> 0:45:01.600 amazing musicians and really well runn business. You know. Um 0:45:01.640 --> 0:45:04.640 Bill Garside and his wife Karen Garcide, who shout out 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:07.160 to Night Shift in Boston. We played. You know, they 0:45:07.200 --> 0:45:09.239 were like the best wedding band in New England, right, 0:45:09.280 --> 0:45:12.799 we were like four seasons. Anyone who wanted like the 0:45:12.840 --> 0:45:15.680 best wedding band at their wedding, that was us. So 0:45:16.080 --> 0:45:18.640 and they paid real good. So I moved down to 0:45:18.640 --> 0:45:21.200 New York, and I would drive back to Boston and 0:45:21.360 --> 0:45:24.840 all over New England, Cape Cod sometimes Vermont, and like 0:45:25.640 --> 0:45:28.280 I would do like a wedding Friday night. I would, 0:45:28.400 --> 0:45:30.279 you know, I would drive up through drive up through 0:45:30.280 --> 0:45:33.839 New Hampshire, up through all that traffic, sweating that I'm 0:45:33.840 --> 0:45:37.640 gonna make it on time, and play a wedding Friday. 0:45:37.680 --> 0:45:40.040 I would do a double Saturday, double Sunday. I'd do 0:45:40.080 --> 0:45:44.560 the cocktail hour and and i'd make my rent for 0:45:44.600 --> 0:45:46.400 the month, you know, and then I go back to 0:45:46.480 --> 0:45:48.600 New York and play some kind of shitty gigs and 0:45:48.680 --> 0:46:00.000 just produce and write songs. Okay, so you're in New York, 0:46:00.080 --> 0:46:02.640 you got enough money to pay the rent. How do 0:46:02.719 --> 0:46:06.200 you make the connections to start to get tracks? Well? 0:46:06.239 --> 0:46:08.479 I didn't, and I was about to give up on music, 0:46:08.520 --> 0:46:10.560 because you know what. The day I moved to New 0:46:10.640 --> 0:46:13.600 York was nine eleven. I had my all my ship 0:46:13.680 --> 0:46:16.400 packed up in my car, and my dad called me 0:46:16.400 --> 0:46:18.120 and said, hey, you're still moving to New York. And 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:19.680 I said yeah. I said, well you should turn on 0:46:19.719 --> 0:46:27.000 the television. So I was like, okay, you know, they 0:46:27.040 --> 0:46:29.040 advised us not to drive to New York. But I 0:46:29.080 --> 0:46:31.799 had this girlfriend that lived outside, like in Yonkers, and 0:46:31.840 --> 0:46:33.399 I kind of stayed with her, and then I drove 0:46:33.440 --> 0:46:37.640 in the next day to sign my lease. There was 0:46:37.800 --> 0:46:40.040 dust all over the cars and everything. So I lived 0:46:40.080 --> 0:46:43.279 in this era of post nine eleven New York and 0:46:44.239 --> 0:46:47.680 everything shut down, Studios, anyone who wanted to help you, 0:46:47.680 --> 0:46:49.919 because that's how you make it right, like people help you, 0:46:49.960 --> 0:46:53.040 maybe you get you kind of do some little jobs 0:46:53.080 --> 0:46:55.920 for someone who's doing really well. None of that happened, 0:46:55.920 --> 0:46:58.560 so I was really struggling. Then I had some friends 0:46:58.560 --> 0:47:02.240 who had moved to Los Angeles who were doing really 0:47:02.239 --> 0:47:06.640 well doing jingles, mixing five point one stuff and more 0:47:06.680 --> 0:47:11.239 technical stuff. But they were my friend Greg Morgenstein and 0:47:11.320 --> 0:47:14.560 Jeff Reid, who were like, uh, had this this company 0:47:14.640 --> 0:47:16.759 enormous music and they'd say, well, here, do this to 0:47:16.960 --> 0:47:18.960 this jingle demo for us. I can pay you three 0:47:19.000 --> 0:47:21.680 hundred bucks to do this jingle demo. Okay, I never 0:47:21.760 --> 0:47:23.480 won one, but I think I won one. I do 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:29.080 I won like a like a uh sunny d commercial. 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:32.440 I I actually won. But other than that, I was 0:47:32.520 --> 0:47:35.480 just making demo fees and they were so sweet. And 0:47:35.560 --> 0:47:40.120 I would start coming out and and and uh visiting them. 0:47:40.160 --> 0:47:44.120 A matter of fact, my manager and longtime friend Neil Jacobson, 0:47:44.160 --> 0:47:46.400 who I think you know who end up being started 0:47:46.480 --> 0:47:49.840 up internship at Interscope, kind of went to go visit 0:47:49.920 --> 0:47:54.120 him and just fell in love with l A. Oh 0:47:54.160 --> 0:47:56.799 my god, like the weather and like everything, so kind 0:47:56.800 --> 0:47:59.560 of like you've got a pool in your house and 0:47:59.560 --> 0:48:01.680 like compare and I was living in a cave basically 0:48:01.719 --> 0:48:06.680 in green Point, Brooklyn, freezing my ass off, just broke um. 0:48:06.800 --> 0:48:09.160 So I started coming out and like take you get 0:48:09.160 --> 0:48:11.279 like a round trip ticket for like two bucks and 0:48:11.680 --> 0:48:13.640 go out and visit. And then I finally said, you 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:15.640 know what, I'm gonna move there. I'm just gonna move. 0:48:15.640 --> 0:48:17.400 Their place opened up in the house. We had a 0:48:17.440 --> 0:48:20.799 studio there, and the very first track that I did 0:48:21.120 --> 0:48:24.240 was the first placement I got on the Games album. 0:48:24.320 --> 0:48:27.239 So it was like remember the Game, like in like 0:48:27.280 --> 0:48:29.319 two thousand four or something, right, So it was like 0:48:29.600 --> 0:48:35.560 Timbaland just Blaze, Dr Dre, Kanye West, Jeff Basker like 0:48:35.719 --> 0:48:38.120 it was like this, like wow, like I got so 0:48:38.360 --> 0:48:43.280 l A has just been very very lucky and and 0:48:43.680 --> 0:48:47.480 uh good been good to me. Moving here and and 0:48:47.600 --> 0:48:49.719 everything just changed, the dynamic change of being in New 0:48:49.760 --> 0:48:52.000 York and being so it's like a guy who's never 0:48:52.040 --> 0:48:53.759 gotten laid talking to girls and they can just like 0:48:53.800 --> 0:48:55.520 smell it on you. Like I'd just be in New 0:48:55.600 --> 0:48:58.759 York just like can you listen to my demo and 0:48:58.760 --> 0:49:02.160 just be like I get away from to Like in 0:49:02.320 --> 0:49:04.760 l A, you'd you'd hang out with people and you'd 0:49:04.800 --> 0:49:07.000 like just be hanging out and then get to know 0:49:07.080 --> 0:49:09.799 them as a person, and and then at the end 0:49:09.800 --> 0:49:11.560 of the conversation they'd be like, what do you do, 0:49:11.640 --> 0:49:13.520 by the way, and it would always be this is 0:49:13.560 --> 0:49:16.520 just the whole energy just flipped. So I've just been 0:49:16.560 --> 0:49:20.560 so fortunate to uh to have that experience in l A. 0:49:20.800 --> 0:49:23.759 And then things kind of didn't really take off for me. 0:49:23.880 --> 0:49:26.160 And I was working for Diane Warren to a friend 0:49:26.160 --> 0:49:28.680 of mine did like drumbeats for her that she would 0:49:28.680 --> 0:49:31.000 write her songs too, and then he brought me into 0:49:31.000 --> 0:49:33.080 help with Then we would make the demos for her 0:49:33.280 --> 0:49:35.279 and get a singer to sing, and I'd say, why 0:49:35.320 --> 0:49:36.759 don't we, why don't we just why you should just 0:49:36.880 --> 0:49:39.759 play this for them? Diane like no, no, no, no, 0:49:39.800 --> 0:49:44.480 I need like a real, real, uh real demo. But 0:49:44.560 --> 0:49:46.600 I learned so much about so and I wanted to 0:49:46.640 --> 0:49:48.719 come to l A to learn songwriting. I wanted to 0:49:48.760 --> 0:49:52.040 definitely get into stick a get away from doing like 0:49:52.120 --> 0:49:55.440 just beats or production for other people, and write the 0:49:55.480 --> 0:49:59.319 song too. And I learned an immense amount from her, 0:50:00.120 --> 0:50:02.680 just so subtle and so nuanced the way she writes 0:50:02.760 --> 0:50:06.400 these iconic songs that have little details in them that 0:50:06.440 --> 0:50:08.879 you don't even notice, you know. And and then also 0:50:08.920 --> 0:50:10.799 met Steve Lindsay. I don't know if you're familiar with 0:50:10.800 --> 0:50:13.560 Steve Lindsay. He had signed Bruno also, and he was 0:50:13.640 --> 0:50:19.719 kind of our mentor in like hit songwriting, UM and 0:50:20.880 --> 0:50:23.920 just doing my little songs. Let's go back a chapter. 0:50:24.400 --> 0:50:27.759 So it was your first composition? How did you get 0:50:27.760 --> 0:50:30.719 into the game? How did that happen? So, my very 0:50:30.800 --> 0:50:34.480 first placement was with this girl wop l A, who 0:50:34.680 --> 0:50:37.000 kind of had she put out. I met her at Berkeley. 0:50:37.239 --> 0:50:39.200 Then she moved back to the Bay. She was from 0:50:39.360 --> 0:50:44.600 the Bay and put out this album UM on her 0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:49.319 own label with her brother's help, on Skyblaze Records. And 0:50:49.400 --> 0:50:53.719 she had this record called Closer that was like a hit. 0:50:53.920 --> 0:50:56.320 It was like number one on cam L when like 0:50:57.560 --> 0:51:00.680 into club was like the number one song everywhere. At 0:51:00.719 --> 0:51:03.120 k M e L it was closer and then number 0:51:03.120 --> 0:51:05.480 two fifty in the club. So she had this like 0:51:05.640 --> 0:51:08.920 hit indie record and I had a couple of cuts 0:51:08.920 --> 0:51:12.160 on that record, and she was doing her second record 0:51:12.640 --> 0:51:15.040 and said, you got any You got any music that 0:51:15.280 --> 0:51:17.799 you want to share with me. I didn't really have 0:51:17.840 --> 0:51:19.480 that much. I had like a couple of things that 0:51:19.520 --> 0:51:21.520 were appropriate for her. It's kind of like a neo 0:51:21.600 --> 0:51:26.719 soul R and B I from a beautiful voice. Um. 0:51:26.760 --> 0:51:28.239 And then I had this beat that I did, like 0:51:28.320 --> 0:51:31.720 with g unit in mind, Like I was just decided 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:33.319 I was gonna make the hardest beat of all time, 0:51:33.600 --> 0:51:35.360 and so I threw that on there. It's kind of 0:51:35.400 --> 0:51:37.680 like a joke, like it was totally inappropriate for her. 0:51:38.040 --> 0:51:41.399 But her brother Nomani heard it and was like, hey, 0:51:41.440 --> 0:51:43.200 what are you doing at that beat? You mind if 0:51:43.200 --> 0:51:46.200 I give it to game? I said yeah, sure, and 0:51:46.280 --> 0:51:49.839 he placed it. Last minute. I was visiting my grandparents 0:51:49.840 --> 0:51:51.840 and iowah, and I get a call we want the 0:51:51.880 --> 0:51:55.160 session files And my buddy had to go dig out 0:51:55.200 --> 0:51:57.680 this old computer that I had made the beat on 0:51:58.320 --> 0:52:03.160 and to find the session and delivered it to the 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:05.919 studio and Dr Dre mixed the track, and I met 0:52:06.000 --> 0:52:08.640 Dr Dre walked in the room and walked over to 0:52:08.719 --> 0:52:10.400 me with his hand out, was like meeting like Obama 0:52:10.560 --> 0:52:12.480 or something, and like shook my hand and said, you 0:52:12.480 --> 0:52:13.880 made a great track. You made a great track. I 0:52:13.960 --> 0:52:16.960 was just like wow, like this is just amazing. So 0:52:17.840 --> 0:52:21.280 but it all came like totally by accident, like sending 0:52:21.320 --> 0:52:23.640 it out. I mean, that's a good lesson that I 0:52:23.719 --> 0:52:25.520 still got to keep in mind. Now. It's like like 0:52:25.600 --> 0:52:28.280 with Beyonce too, Like I had all this kind of obscure, weird, 0:52:28.360 --> 0:52:31.719 dark music that my publisher Katie Welly at Sony at 0:52:31.760 --> 0:52:35.319 the time, Uh, I'm you know, it was kind of 0:52:35.400 --> 0:52:38.880 Jody Gerson's right hand woman. UM, and I'm still with 0:52:39.000 --> 0:52:43.520 Jody at Universal. Um said do you mind if I 0:52:43.560 --> 0:52:47.200 send those Billy Craven songs to Beyonce. I was like, sure, 0:52:47.320 --> 0:52:50.600 go for it. But and there's no chance in hell 0:52:50.680 --> 0:52:54.240 she's gonna want that. Turns out that's exactly what she wanted, 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:59.359 you know. So it's like you never know, a matter 0:52:59.400 --> 0:53:03.040 of fact, you should probably count on people want the 0:53:03.080 --> 0:53:05.759 opposite of what you are. They definitely don't want their 0:53:05.840 --> 0:53:08.960 what their last hit sounded like, which is whatever people 0:53:09.000 --> 0:53:10.719 are trying to give them what their last hit is. 0:53:10.719 --> 0:53:14.120 They think, what would Beyonce want? Well, I'll sounder another single? Ladies, 0:53:14.160 --> 0:53:16.400 It's like, well they want the next thing, you know, 0:53:16.520 --> 0:53:19.520 so and most of all they want you and what 0:53:19.800 --> 0:53:25.839 your creative essence is something unique? Right, So in both 0:53:25.840 --> 0:53:30.400 those cases, it was the uniqueness of what I was 0:53:30.480 --> 0:53:34.560 doing that one and bore out, you know. Okay, so 0:53:34.640 --> 0:53:36.719 you're talking about all these lessons and these little things 0:53:36.719 --> 0:53:39.280 you'll learn from Diane, and then ultimately they're after working 0:53:39.320 --> 0:53:43.399 with lindsay, Um, can you give us a couple of those? Sure? Well, 0:53:43.440 --> 0:53:45.440 I mean, like one thing I noticed with Diane because 0:53:45.480 --> 0:53:49.719 like I had, like I have a really good musical here, right, 0:53:49.719 --> 0:53:52.120 and especially from like playing wedding band. Thing was like 0:53:52.160 --> 0:53:54.000 pretty easy for me because I could just like listen 0:53:54.000 --> 0:53:55.960 to a song and I can just play it and 0:53:55.960 --> 0:53:58.640 I know the structure and I have a background in composition, 0:53:58.760 --> 0:54:01.560 so you know, I would listen to her demo and 0:54:01.600 --> 0:54:03.720 I was like, Okay, I got this down easy. Boom, 0:54:04.160 --> 0:54:06.840 I started doing it, and somewhere in the middle or 0:54:07.239 --> 0:54:10.560 like a quarter of the way through I would get 0:54:10.560 --> 0:54:13.800 off somehow, and I said, this was such a simple progression. 0:54:13.880 --> 0:54:16.440 What happened? And I go back and listen to it. Oh, 0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:20.839 she dropped a little beat out there, you know. And 0:54:21.160 --> 0:54:23.680 you know, I think one tendency is sometimes like you 0:54:23.760 --> 0:54:27.160 tend to want to extend a bar or something. And 0:54:27.200 --> 0:54:29.399 that's one lesson I learned from her, is like, don't 0:54:29.400 --> 0:54:33.200 ever extend pull the rug out, like you want to 0:54:33.239 --> 0:54:36.360 take a beat away so that that chorus hits them faster. 0:54:36.719 --> 0:54:38.880 You don't want to make them wait, you want to 0:54:38.920 --> 0:54:41.719 be unexpected. I mean, she was just full of little 0:54:41.719 --> 0:54:44.200 tricks like that, you know, or like just a simple 0:54:44.360 --> 0:54:46.880 something that seemed like a simple figure, but there's some 0:54:46.960 --> 0:54:50.319 little melody going on on the inside of of what 0:54:50.480 --> 0:54:52.759 she's doing. And that was like one of Lindsay's things too, 0:54:52.760 --> 0:54:58.759 write like um for everything to be hooks, you know, 0:54:58.880 --> 0:55:02.360 everything to be the little hookie things, and especially like 0:55:02.400 --> 0:55:05.960 I'm a lot of cook you know, like that's uh, 0:55:06.080 --> 0:55:09.680 I'm not going to give away like the secrets of 0:55:09.680 --> 0:55:13.120 of Steve Lindsay, but but uh, but you know, a 0:55:13.160 --> 0:55:14.840 lot of it is like I mean, I think to 0:55:14.880 --> 0:55:18.920 the point is like there's a real craft to doing, 0:55:19.120 --> 0:55:23.640 to writing great songs and to making uh. I think 0:55:23.640 --> 0:55:25.920 there's inspiration, but I think that gets a little lost 0:55:25.960 --> 0:55:27.319 along the way. And that's something I try to do 0:55:27.360 --> 0:55:30.279 in my production to try to encourage the artists to 0:55:30.840 --> 0:55:34.240 keep pushing, keep refining, keep keep working on it until 0:55:34.320 --> 0:55:37.479 it's the best, best, best thing it can be. Play 0:55:37.480 --> 0:55:41.200 it for other people, like listen to it through their ears. 0:55:41.280 --> 0:55:42.840 You know, you'll know you'll think something is great, and 0:55:42.880 --> 0:55:44.200 then play it for something you kind of feel a 0:55:44.280 --> 0:55:46.520 lull in the rooms. Okay, I gotta fix that, you know, 0:55:46.560 --> 0:55:48.560 but you want you need that song. You talk about 0:55:48.600 --> 0:55:51.360 that a lot in your in your letters, like about 0:55:51.680 --> 0:55:54.040 really crafty, like you you need something that is gonna 0:55:54.120 --> 0:55:57.439 just murder, like you can't look. Don't think you're gonna 0:55:57.480 --> 0:56:01.200 go out there and just get in fired and write 0:56:01.200 --> 0:56:02.759 it on there. I don't know forget who said it, 0:56:02.800 --> 0:56:06.120 but it's a great quote. Inspiration is for amateurs. You know, 0:56:06.440 --> 0:56:09.320 you go in there and do the work, make the donuts, 0:56:09.520 --> 0:56:13.080 you know, and the special sauces to be critical of 0:56:13.120 --> 0:56:17.000 yourself because guess what, once it's released, you can't go 0:56:17.080 --> 0:56:19.000 back and fix it. Although I guess Kanye kind of 0:56:19.040 --> 0:56:21.840 pioneered like the that being fake, but but you know, 0:56:22.000 --> 0:56:25.359 ultimately you this is your chance to make it as 0:56:25.400 --> 0:56:28.280 good as it can be. And that's the whatever rules 0:56:28.280 --> 0:56:30.480 you follow, or you know, make your own rules, but 0:56:30.880 --> 0:56:34.520 have rules, have limitations, be critical of yourself, don't go 0:56:34.680 --> 0:56:37.040 for the I'll tell you one thing I did that 0:56:37.280 --> 0:56:39.799 really just was a real magical thing that I did 0:56:39.840 --> 0:56:43.279 for myself, you know, and your peers. Of like you're 0:56:43.280 --> 0:56:44.960 playing music for your peers, like listen to this beat 0:56:44.960 --> 0:56:47.239 I did, and everyone's You want to play music for everyone, right, 0:56:47.640 --> 0:56:50.520 it starts to become like a burden, like people like, okay, 0:56:50.640 --> 0:56:54.840 let me listen to your fucking song. At one point, 0:56:54.920 --> 0:56:57.359 for whatever reason, I just said, you know what, I 0:56:57.360 --> 0:56:59.799 am not going to ask anyone to listen to my 0:56:59.840 --> 0:57:03.800 mean USIC anymore. I want people to beg to listen 0:57:04.640 --> 0:57:07.279 to my music, you know. And that's like that's the 0:57:07.320 --> 0:57:10.200 reaction you want, right. You want to play something and 0:57:10.239 --> 0:57:13.239 you want them to say, can I hear that one 0:57:13.239 --> 0:57:15.160 more time? You want them to listen to it again. 0:57:15.360 --> 0:57:19.520 So just having that mentality I think of, like you 0:57:19.560 --> 0:57:22.040 want to make your music so good that people want 0:57:22.120 --> 0:57:25.760 to listen to it, not like subject. It's a lot 0:57:25.800 --> 0:57:29.760 of effort to listen to someone's song, you know, so 0:57:29.960 --> 0:57:32.360 you better make it freaking good. Like, don't waste their time. 0:57:32.440 --> 0:57:34.320 Kanye said to me once. The first time I played 0:57:34.360 --> 0:57:38.400 him something, he said, don't ever waste my time like 0:57:38.480 --> 0:57:40.520 that again. He says, time is the one thing that 0:57:40.560 --> 0:57:42.720 I can't get back, and you just wasted it, you know. 0:57:42.760 --> 0:57:45.800 So the next time I played him something is I 0:57:45.880 --> 0:57:48.280 made sure it was the right thing, and that's when 0:57:48.320 --> 0:57:51.480 he said, Oh, you're gonna make my next album with me, 0:57:51.520 --> 0:57:53.720 he told my mom. My mom came backstage one night 0:57:53.920 --> 0:57:55.240 to one of the shows because I used to play 0:57:55.240 --> 0:57:57.160 in Kanye's band. That's how I met him. I was 0:57:57.200 --> 0:58:00.880 his music director and one and my mom came to 0:58:00.880 --> 0:58:03.240 one of the shows and he said, I mean, Kanye, 0:58:03.400 --> 0:58:05.040 this is the side of Kanye that people don't see. 0:58:05.040 --> 0:58:08.240 It's stuff like we played in Albuquerque. He's he hasn't 0:58:08.280 --> 0:58:10.640 had slept, He's just did a show. He's not feeling 0:58:10.640 --> 0:58:12.560 that great. He like hung out with my family for 0:58:12.560 --> 0:58:15.600 like an hour, you know, like and like just like 0:58:15.600 --> 0:58:18.120 shooting the ship. That's that old Midwestern like Mama raised 0:58:18.120 --> 0:58:22.000 you right shit. And then my my mom came backstage 0:58:22.040 --> 0:58:24.120 to one of the shows and he said, oh, Jeff Man, 0:58:24.200 --> 0:58:26.400 Jeff so great. He's like, just kinna, He's gonna produce 0:58:26.400 --> 0:58:30.400 my next album. And I was like, I am, you know, 0:58:30.480 --> 0:58:32.800 because I played him this song. And that's a lot 0:58:32.840 --> 0:58:36.480 of the influence of the stuff I was doing and 0:58:36.560 --> 0:58:40.240 my love of melody and and learning from Diane and 0:58:40.320 --> 0:58:43.320 mixing it with this kind of darker aesthetic. That's what 0:58:43.560 --> 0:58:46.600 he was kind of interested in, that realm, and that's 0:58:46.640 --> 0:58:48.760 when Ada Waits and Heartbreaks kind of came together and 0:58:48.760 --> 0:58:51.440 he his love of melody. He decided he wanted to 0:58:51.440 --> 0:58:54.720 be a melodist, you know. And he saw me and 0:58:54.760 --> 0:58:57.400 he was like, oh, you can help me do this 0:58:57.520 --> 0:59:00.800 because you get it, and you also understand can temporary art, 0:59:01.280 --> 0:59:03.760 or at least have an interest in it. And you 0:59:03.840 --> 0:59:06.360 understand what I'm trying to do kind of merge highbrow 0:59:06.400 --> 0:59:09.960 and lowbrow, classical avant guard. You know, it's always a 0:59:10.000 --> 0:59:13.840 mixture and a cocktail of polar opposites that exist in 0:59:13.920 --> 0:59:16.520 tension with one another. Okay, let's pick up the narrative. 0:59:16.640 --> 0:59:19.439 So you know, you're working with Diane and you're working 0:59:19.480 --> 0:59:22.400 with Steve Lindsay, you introduce you and Bruno. What happens next? 0:59:22.520 --> 0:59:24.280 So what happens is I get the call to do 0:59:24.360 --> 0:59:28.280 some backup keyboard gigs. And we bet you remember the 0:59:28.280 --> 0:59:31.000 Scion car. Maybe they still make them, but they were 0:59:31.040 --> 0:59:35.120 doing these Scion cars to appeal to like people who 0:59:35.200 --> 0:59:38.120 like hip hop music. So they started sponsoring these tours 0:59:38.400 --> 0:59:41.439 with the Rizza with Slick Rick, did like a tour 0:59:41.520 --> 0:59:45.720 of Colorado with Slick Rick Um and did the Game, 0:59:45.760 --> 0:59:47.800 did something with the Game with the Lettuce guys. Right, 0:59:47.880 --> 0:59:50.640 we were like backing up these rappers. Then I get 0:59:50.680 --> 0:59:54.120 a call I had done this gig with this band Chromeo. 0:59:54.280 --> 0:59:57.360 I don't know if you know of Chromeo, right, and 0:59:58.160 --> 1:00:03.200 Dave the Dave One, the lead singer, UM and Brilliant 1:00:03.240 --> 1:00:06.760 Guys a couple of like awesome guys. I played in 1:00:06.760 --> 1:00:09.760 their live band at the beginning. And then but Dave 1:00:09.840 --> 1:00:12.800 One's little brothers A track who the DJA, who was 1:00:12.840 --> 1:00:16.480 kind of a DJ at the time, and they needed 1:00:16.520 --> 1:00:19.560 a substitute keyboard player because their keyboard player had to 1:00:19.600 --> 1:00:21.760 go to some other gig with jay Z I think, 1:00:22.120 --> 1:00:24.480 And so he asked a track said, you know when 1:00:24.480 --> 1:00:29.200 your keyboard player A track asked his brothers who recommended 1:00:29.240 --> 1:00:33.120 my friend Nick Casper, who was the other keyboard player 1:00:33.120 --> 1:00:37.920 and Chromeo and Nick said, nah, you should get Jeff. 1:00:38.120 --> 1:00:40.360 He'll do he'll do a better job. You know, it's 1:00:40.360 --> 1:00:44.000 more his his thing. Um. So I got the call 1:00:44.120 --> 1:00:47.800 to be Kanye's sub keyboard player, did the Jimmy Kimmel 1:00:47.880 --> 1:00:53.440 Show right when he released Graduation and did a few gigs. 1:00:53.560 --> 1:00:55.320 The other keyboard player was ready to come back and 1:00:55.320 --> 1:00:57.960 they said, no, what we decided we want to keep you. 1:00:57.960 --> 1:00:59.920 You're so I was getting in there. I was like, 1:01:00.320 --> 1:01:02.720 it's when we had like a track, a keyboard player 1:01:02.760 --> 1:01:05.600 and then it's like all female, like Miniature Orchestra was 1:01:05.600 --> 1:01:09.840 amazing group. And I've noticed like this this arrangement is 1:01:09.880 --> 1:01:12.120 a little like messed up, Like this part's not right. 1:01:12.160 --> 1:01:13.520 Do you mind if I And I'd ask him you 1:01:13.520 --> 1:01:15.560 mind if I changed that? He's like, go ahead, fix 1:01:15.720 --> 1:01:18.160 fix this, fix that, And and a track was telling me, 1:01:18.200 --> 1:01:21.479 He's like, you know what, this is great, keep doing 1:01:21.520 --> 1:01:25.040 this because he needs someone like you. There's no like 1:01:25.320 --> 1:01:28.479 music director for someone with your skill set to kind 1:01:28.520 --> 1:01:33.400 of polish all these things musically. So I kind of 1:01:33.640 --> 1:01:36.120 went in there with the goal of making myself indispensable, 1:01:36.120 --> 1:01:37.720 and I had always been kind of a fan, like, 1:01:37.880 --> 1:01:40.320 not not so obsessed like it was the end all 1:01:40.360 --> 1:01:45.160 be all, but I really admired his kind of idio 1:01:45.440 --> 1:01:52.120 sync syncratic style and and humor and and the positive 1:01:52.240 --> 1:01:59.120 kind of like empowered thing that he embodied. So right 1:01:59.160 --> 1:02:01.560 away we kind to hit it off, and then I 1:02:01.640 --> 1:02:04.440 became his music director, and then he started inviting me 1:02:04.480 --> 1:02:06.480 to the studio, and kind of the rest is history 1:02:06.840 --> 1:02:10.040 as far as that era of the might work with Kanye, 1:02:10.120 --> 1:02:12.440 you know, and worked on EIGHTA Weights and and Dark 1:02:12.480 --> 1:02:15.439 Twisted Fantasy as well as like jay Z Blueprint three 1:02:16.080 --> 1:02:20.160 and uh a few other things, you know, but but 1:02:20.240 --> 1:02:22.439 mainly all that work with and then you know, still 1:02:22.440 --> 1:02:24.400 played in his band and like did the world tour 1:02:24.480 --> 1:02:27.080 like Glow in the Dark Tour, and which was amazing 1:02:27.120 --> 1:02:29.320 because we always got to work with the best lighting people, 1:02:29.360 --> 1:02:33.880 the best stage designers as Devlin you know. Um, I 1:02:33.960 --> 1:02:35.760 love that part of it. And that's how I actually 1:02:35.760 --> 1:02:38.240 got the Gaga gig, because remember they were going to 1:02:38.320 --> 1:02:40.800 do a joint show and then it fell apart, but 1:02:40.840 --> 1:02:44.520 she said, well, you do my my show, So so 1:02:44.560 --> 1:02:47.040 many opportunities came from that and also just like the 1:02:47.080 --> 1:02:50.520 finishing school of being, like, oh shit, like this is 1:02:50.520 --> 1:02:53.360 how hard someone can work. Like just seeing how hard 1:02:53.480 --> 1:02:57.480 he worked and and how focused he was and uncompromising 1:02:57.560 --> 1:03:00.880 and and also like you know, it was just like 1:03:00.920 --> 1:03:03.760 the ultimate graduate school of being. Also being an artist, 1:03:03.800 --> 1:03:05.520 like taught me what it means to be an artist 1:03:05.560 --> 1:03:08.800 because he just true to himself and explores his ideas 1:03:08.840 --> 1:03:13.160 and also so outside of the mainstream, right just setting 1:03:13.200 --> 1:03:18.240 the trends and setting defining, not following ever, and it 1:03:18.400 --> 1:03:21.400 kind of it away was my little version of not little, 1:03:21.440 --> 1:03:25.080 but my version of working being with Miles Davis. You know, 1:03:25.240 --> 1:03:27.120 like as a jazz musician, you'd you would get picked 1:03:27.200 --> 1:03:30.680 up by some iconic leader and then you would learn 1:03:30.720 --> 1:03:35.240 from them, So it's kind of similar aesthetic. I think 1:03:35.320 --> 1:03:40.120 also that he was such an intelligent guy, so uncompromising, 1:03:40.200 --> 1:03:45.440 but also very rooted in the black tradition and outspoken socially, 1:03:45.760 --> 1:03:52.120 and just like that was an incredibly formative time for me. 1:03:52.600 --> 1:03:53.880 And then I kind of had to go out on 1:03:53.920 --> 1:03:56.480 my own and and and do my own thing. And Okay, 1:03:56.480 --> 1:03:59.480 so how did it end with Kanye And what's your 1:03:59.640 --> 1:04:03.840 really ship with Kanye today? Well, it ended because I said, 1:04:04.240 --> 1:04:05.520 you know what, I don't think I want to be 1:04:05.600 --> 1:04:07.280 in the band anymore. I just want to be in 1:04:07.320 --> 1:04:09.240 the studio. And he kind of got upset about that 1:04:09.240 --> 1:04:11.440 because I think it was kind of like, oh man, 1:04:11.840 --> 1:04:13.920 it was a tight inner circle. You know, it kind 1:04:13.920 --> 1:04:17.480 of maybe felt like I was abandoning him or but 1:04:17.720 --> 1:04:20.120 the reality was just like, hey, I could be out 1:04:20.120 --> 1:04:21.640 there and making hit records. I don't need to be 1:04:21.680 --> 1:04:26.080 in this like rehearsal space, eating a bag of chips 1:04:26.120 --> 1:04:29.520 and waiting twelve hours for you to show up. Um, 1:04:29.560 --> 1:04:31.160 not that it was always like that, because I would 1:04:31.160 --> 1:04:33.280 be in the studio, but it was just quite a 1:04:33.280 --> 1:04:35.680 brutal existence. You know, at the time it was great, 1:04:35.760 --> 1:04:40.560 but taking a forty hour flight from Rio de Janeiro 1:04:40.760 --> 1:04:45.280 in economy to Singapore, like after you had food poisoning, 1:04:45.360 --> 1:04:51.760 like it was just like physically demanding, and you know, 1:04:52.320 --> 1:04:54.800 moving forward to me like he's kind of my idol 1:04:54.920 --> 1:04:58.640 and role model, like you would never limit yourself. You 1:04:58.680 --> 1:05:03.520 want to keep growing and keep expanding on So for 1:05:03.600 --> 1:05:08.680 a brief period we kinda stop contact, but then you know, 1:05:09.760 --> 1:05:11.600 anytime he would call, I would go back and do 1:05:11.680 --> 1:05:14.040 some more gigs. I could do the Coachella when he 1:05:14.040 --> 1:05:16.640 headline Coachella or any little gig or you know, he 1:05:16.680 --> 1:05:18.840 always kind of calls in all the forces for any 1:05:18.880 --> 1:05:22.600 project to get all the manpower on deck. Um. So 1:05:24.120 --> 1:05:27.440 when Kanye calls, I answer and I happily go in 1:05:27.520 --> 1:05:29.240 and you know, just like this last one like come 1:05:29.320 --> 1:05:32.120 to Life on the Donda record. You know, I always 1:05:32.120 --> 1:05:34.840 just love being around his energy, and it's just like 1:05:35.080 --> 1:05:39.320 the most inspiring environment and positive environment like you can 1:05:39.360 --> 1:05:42.600 be in creatively because he really sets the tone for 1:05:42.760 --> 1:05:45.480 her for that and you're always around like the most 1:05:45.520 --> 1:05:48.640 creative interesting people. But you know, I kind of hold 1:05:48.680 --> 1:05:54.160 like a like a have my boundary of where I 1:05:54.240 --> 1:05:58.080 have to preserve my own creative practice and how much 1:05:58.160 --> 1:06:00.680 time because you can get sucked into it. It is 1:06:00.720 --> 1:06:06.480 a very like powerful world to get sucked into. Um. 1:06:06.520 --> 1:06:09.480 But it's such a you know, it's such a privilege 1:06:09.520 --> 1:06:11.080 to be able to move in and out of that 1:06:11.120 --> 1:06:16.280 circle and and um, I feel really blessed to when 1:06:16.280 --> 1:06:18.440 I get that call and go in and and do 1:06:18.560 --> 1:06:20.280 that thing and then be able to go outside and 1:06:20.320 --> 1:06:29.480 do my own thing again. Okay, I'll be home with 1:06:29.840 --> 1:06:34.520 Kanye once. And what I most remember about that experience 1:06:34.560 --> 1:06:38.000 was he had no sense of humor about himself. Okay, 1:06:38.360 --> 1:06:41.120 he talked about himself in the third person a little bit, 1:06:41.520 --> 1:06:44.160 and it was an addressing room, you know, it was 1:06:44.320 --> 1:06:46.440 there was no pressure, so it was kind of funny. 1:06:47.160 --> 1:06:51.600 And certainly since then a lot has changed in his life. 1:06:52.480 --> 1:06:55.919 So and then, of course many people believe he's bipolar. 1:06:56.280 --> 1:07:00.800 What is going on with Kanye? I mean to be honest, 1:07:00.840 --> 1:07:03.920 I can't really comment on what is going on with 1:07:04.000 --> 1:07:08.320 him or what, like, to what extent he is a 1:07:08.360 --> 1:07:15.240 bipolar or not or anything. To me, he is like 1:07:17.600 --> 1:07:22.240 the most brilliant artists out there, like by a thousand miles, 1:07:22.760 --> 1:07:27.360 and he is uncompromising and on a kind of on 1:07:27.440 --> 1:07:30.240 a mission. You know. He's a philosopher in a sense 1:07:30.440 --> 1:07:34.000 that he and that's kind of the part of like 1:07:34.520 --> 1:07:39.000 the third person is like being able to say in 1:07:39.040 --> 1:07:44.040 the grand scheme, you know, like here's what I'm meant 1:07:44.040 --> 1:07:46.840 to He's always trying to find meaning in what he does, 1:07:47.080 --> 1:07:53.440 right and um finding truth, you know, like one example, 1:07:53.440 --> 1:07:55.480 one one other story I can tell about, like with 1:07:55.560 --> 1:07:57.720 eight O weights and heartbreaks. When I asked for my publishing, 1:07:58.040 --> 1:08:00.720 you know, and I think a lot of people around 1:08:00.840 --> 1:08:03.240 him like we're like, hey, you know, just trying to 1:08:03.280 --> 1:08:04.920 protect him, not in a not in a kind of 1:08:04.920 --> 1:08:07.960 nefarious or kind of unfair way. We're trying to limit 1:08:08.080 --> 1:08:15.080 my contribution, uh, publishing wise and monetarily, because they're just 1:08:15.080 --> 1:08:17.080 negotiating for his side. It was had nothing to do 1:08:17.120 --> 1:08:20.519 with anything anyone doing anything wrong. And I remember at 1:08:20.560 --> 1:08:23.920 one point he said, give Jeff his publishing, like he 1:08:24.080 --> 1:08:27.320 who made a very point to be fair about it, 1:08:27.400 --> 1:08:29.479 and even further, at one point I said, you know, 1:08:29.520 --> 1:08:31.439 I got teen percent on this. I think it should 1:08:31.439 --> 1:08:36.080 be and and I kind of felt sheepish about asking 1:08:36.120 --> 1:08:38.080 him because I was so grateful. He kind of gave 1:08:38.120 --> 1:08:41.639 me a big chunk anyway, and he said, hey, it's 1:08:41.640 --> 1:08:45.960 not about feeling bad or this or that. It's about 1:08:46.000 --> 1:08:49.439 being fair, you know. And that moment kind of gave 1:08:49.479 --> 1:08:54.040 me a little insight into I think even in his music, 1:08:54.280 --> 1:08:59.120 it's very self examining, you know, and he really wants 1:08:59.160 --> 1:09:02.479 to get to the body of why we're here, What 1:09:02.720 --> 1:09:05.280 is the truth? You know, kind of in classical art 1:09:05.439 --> 1:09:11.120 or the idea of like uh uh, a perfect truth, 1:09:11.280 --> 1:09:15.240 things that are perfect and beautiful, that there's a truth 1:09:15.320 --> 1:09:18.880 to beauty that's my take on it, like that he 1:09:19.040 --> 1:09:23.200 has this sense of what's what's the truth? And I 1:09:23.240 --> 1:09:26.120 think especially in this day and age where things are 1:09:26.120 --> 1:09:28.719 so polarized, and I think that I was just having 1:09:28.720 --> 1:09:32.640 this conversation with someone about how we want things to be. 1:09:32.800 --> 1:09:35.040 We need things to be black and white because it 1:09:35.080 --> 1:09:37.120 makes it much easier to process and deal with. But 1:09:37.400 --> 1:09:41.439 the reality is, it's just not like the world is 1:09:41.520 --> 1:09:43.759 just not black and white. There are so many shades 1:09:43.800 --> 1:09:48.800 of gray, and everything is a conversation, right, and the 1:09:48.800 --> 1:09:50.880 truth maybe even hard to pin down, like if you 1:09:50.920 --> 1:09:52.519 even get to like quantum physics, how they say, like 1:09:52.520 --> 1:09:54.559 if you observe something, it changes you know. It's like 1:09:54.760 --> 1:09:59.479 it's just so ultimately and unfathomably complex the world. And 1:09:59.800 --> 1:10:03.360 I think in trying to bring those things into the 1:10:03.479 --> 1:10:08.080 light and saying the uncomfortable things and saying and exploring 1:10:08.200 --> 1:10:11.559 the uncomfortable topics that gets him and a lot of 1:10:11.600 --> 1:10:13.960 like people just cannot understand it because they need things 1:10:13.960 --> 1:10:16.479 to be black or white. They need to be John Legend, 1:10:16.600 --> 1:10:18.920 or they need it to be fucking Floyd Mary whether 1:10:19.000 --> 1:10:20.880 or I don't know what what what what think how 1:10:20.920 --> 1:10:25.640 you want to explain it? But I think with him, 1:10:25.720 --> 1:10:29.920 He's not gonna stop being who he is for anyone else. 1:10:30.360 --> 1:10:33.400 That's always been the constant mantra, like I am gonna 1:10:33.479 --> 1:10:37.080 no one's gonna define me. I'm gonna define myself. And 1:10:37.160 --> 1:10:40.840 to be honest, in America, if you're a black man 1:10:41.040 --> 1:10:44.960 and you have that attitude, you're gonna hit get some blowback. 1:10:45.240 --> 1:10:47.400 You know. If you're Marlon Brando and you punch a 1:10:47.400 --> 1:10:50.840 photographer in the face, you're like cool and you're you're 1:10:51.600 --> 1:10:55.120 you know, wow, such a yeah, Like those photographers are 1:10:55.160 --> 1:10:58.200 so invasive. If you're Kanye, like, oh man, he's unhinged, 1:10:58.240 --> 1:11:02.280 he's bipolar, you know, Like there's definitely an undercurrent of 1:11:02.439 --> 1:11:07.800 racism in the viewpoint of Kanye West. And then there's 1:11:07.840 --> 1:11:09.680 all kinds of complicated things around it too. And I 1:11:09.720 --> 1:11:11.479 don't want to spend too much time talking about Kanye, 1:11:11.600 --> 1:11:17.160 but you know, I can just say from many experiences 1:11:17.280 --> 1:11:22.000 that he's not a different person so much. He's maybe 1:11:22.040 --> 1:11:26.040 he's he's grown and he's changed, but his core hasn't changed. 1:11:26.160 --> 1:11:32.160 And at that core is a person who truly wants 1:11:32.240 --> 1:11:37.840 to better the world through his actions, you know. And 1:11:38.160 --> 1:11:44.160 I think it gets complicated, but you know, there have 1:11:44.200 --> 1:11:50.439 been too many moments of of goodwill. And I think 1:11:50.479 --> 1:11:54.280 anyone that has been in a more casual environment, you know, 1:11:54.320 --> 1:11:57.479 maybe not with like someone who writes about music and 1:11:57.800 --> 1:11:59.519 you're kind of on your guard, but if you've ever 1:11:59.560 --> 1:12:04.960 been in this studio, in his creative environments, you feel 1:12:04.960 --> 1:12:13.160 an overwhelmingly positive and uplifting feeling. I think even his 1:12:13.280 --> 1:12:19.200 music it has at its essence that feeling positive, uplifting. 1:12:20.840 --> 1:12:25.400 Uh true, true? You know, like those are all these 1:12:25.479 --> 1:12:28.200 kind of like things that I hear in his music from, 1:12:28.240 --> 1:12:32.120 like a sense of hope, you know, touch the sky 1:12:32.720 --> 1:12:37.080 you know. Um, I wonder and I wonder if you 1:12:37.240 --> 1:12:41.840 know what it means to find your dreams lift off. 1:12:41.880 --> 1:12:44.240 You know, it's just like an endless graduation. It's just 1:12:44.280 --> 1:12:49.280 an endless dream stronger. You know. It's always this empowering, uplifting, 1:12:49.479 --> 1:12:53.080 positive emotion that I think says a lot about who 1:12:53.160 --> 1:12:55.760 Kanye West is. So you wake up and say, hey, 1:12:55.920 --> 1:12:57.679 you know, I don't want to be flying a coach 1:12:57.760 --> 1:13:00.439 around the world. I want to do more own thing. 1:13:00.560 --> 1:13:05.320 When you leave Kanye, do you have opportunities that have 1:13:05.400 --> 1:13:07.760 come to you want to fulfill or do you basically say, 1:13:08.040 --> 1:13:10.400 you know, I can't do the Kanye thing anymore. I'm 1:13:10.400 --> 1:13:12.760 gonna hang up my shingle and see what happens. No, 1:13:13.000 --> 1:13:14.840 I already had a lot of pressure. I had. I 1:13:14.880 --> 1:13:17.000 had try Sleeping with a Broken Heart in the can 1:13:17.120 --> 1:13:18.640 and I don't know if you remember that record by 1:13:18.640 --> 1:13:22.599 Alicia Keys, but Beyonce, Rihanna, and Alicia Keys all wanted 1:13:22.640 --> 1:13:25.040 that record. So I had like a heater and everyone 1:13:25.120 --> 1:13:27.760 was like I had. I had every label and every 1:13:27.760 --> 1:13:30.840 manager calling me going like what is it gonna take 1:13:30.880 --> 1:13:32.880 to get this record from you? So I had like 1:13:32.920 --> 1:13:37.680 a missile uh in my back pocket. That was, you know, 1:13:39.560 --> 1:13:44.160 already like hey, you know I could do this. I could. Uh. 1:13:44.200 --> 1:13:46.000 That's kind of what happened when I signed with Jody 1:13:46.120 --> 1:13:48.040 was she came over and she thought she was gonna 1:13:48.080 --> 1:13:50.320 sign like Kanye's keyboard player, and I played her try 1:13:50.320 --> 1:13:52.479 something the Broken Heart and she was like, oh shit, 1:13:52.800 --> 1:13:55.800 You're like you're like the total package, Like you have 1:13:55.920 --> 1:13:59.120 a whole aesthetic, you can write the whole song. So 1:14:00.040 --> 1:14:01.760 it was about kind of falling. It was kind of 1:14:01.800 --> 1:14:05.080 like okay, like everything I had learned up to that point, 1:14:05.120 --> 1:14:07.880 now let's go. Let's let's get in the game. And 1:14:08.720 --> 1:14:11.040 where I kind of left off with the game track. 1:14:11.960 --> 1:14:13.920 Why it didn't pop off, it was because I wasn't 1:14:13.920 --> 1:14:18.280 really ready, you know. Now I was ready and try 1:14:18.280 --> 1:14:21.679 to see the Broken Heart happened, the Beyonce cuts happened, 1:14:22.040 --> 1:14:25.120 Then Nate Ruce came along, and then it went and 1:14:25.240 --> 1:14:28.200 Bruno and Mark ronson and then it was just this 1:14:28.320 --> 1:14:30.960 stream of like got to work at Taylor Swift called 1:14:31.960 --> 1:14:34.280 I got to work with the Rolling Stones, which was 1:14:34.320 --> 1:14:37.200 an amazing experience that Jimmy Iveen put together. That was 1:14:37.240 --> 1:14:40.559 all from some nights that was all like mix and 1:14:41.320 --> 1:14:42.599 here and we are young and be like, why can't 1:14:42.600 --> 1:14:44.559 we do a song like that? And Jimmy saying, I 1:14:44.640 --> 1:14:46.439 know the guy, you know, because that was when Neil 1:14:46.600 --> 1:14:49.040 was That was when Neil was like his protege and 1:14:49.200 --> 1:14:53.479 was like, um so just you know, just so many 1:14:54.680 --> 1:14:58.439 a little bit slower. So you have this song, you 1:14:58.520 --> 1:15:02.479 start to have this success us what happens next? Do 1:15:02.560 --> 1:15:05.800 you hunker down in a studio and start writing more 1:15:05.920 --> 1:15:09.400 stuff or do you start working with people to build 1:15:09.400 --> 1:15:12.080 from the ground up? You know, you get you have 1:15:12.120 --> 1:15:14.920 that one amazing track, and how much of it is you? 1:15:15.000 --> 1:15:17.240 And how much of it is Jody or the other 1:15:17.320 --> 1:15:21.000 people who are you know, working for you mostly me, 1:15:21.120 --> 1:15:24.639 right because it's just after the so I was talking 1:15:24.680 --> 1:15:27.360 about like the Kanye stamp of approval, and then also 1:15:27.520 --> 1:15:29.800 throw the try sleep in the Broken Heart on it, 1:15:29.840 --> 1:15:33.000 which at the time was like a very influential record, 1:15:33.040 --> 1:15:36.679 like it was her first number one UK record, and 1:15:37.640 --> 1:15:40.160 even to this day people tell me like that's their 1:15:40.240 --> 1:15:43.920 favorite song of mine, like that was a really special moment. 1:15:44.080 --> 1:15:46.480 Kind of became my calling card. I think all producers 1:15:46.479 --> 1:15:49.800 out there like and writers like that's what you should 1:15:49.800 --> 1:15:52.240 be focusing on, Like you need to make your calling 1:15:52.280 --> 1:15:55.040 card song, like the song that's going to define you. 1:15:55.320 --> 1:15:58.519 So after that, it was kind of like I mean 1:15:58.560 --> 1:16:00.840 not to oversimplifying it, but like the phone ringing off 1:16:00.880 --> 1:16:04.040 the hook, you know, so I could kind of choose 1:16:04.120 --> 1:16:06.240 my about and I did a lot of things that 1:16:06.280 --> 1:16:09.439 we're also filling the space to like that that maybe 1:16:09.479 --> 1:16:11.720 not weren't necessarily the biggest projects in the world, but 1:16:12.479 --> 1:16:18.360 I think, you know, it varies from not always the same, 1:16:18.439 --> 1:16:20.360 Like sometimes I'd write the whole song and I'd send 1:16:20.360 --> 1:16:22.840 it out and people would want to cut it. And 1:16:22.920 --> 1:16:25.200 sometimes I'd go in a room and we wouldn't have anything, 1:16:25.439 --> 1:16:28.360 and we would write the song from scratch, or we 1:16:28.400 --> 1:16:31.240 would get an idea and then we would bring another 1:16:31.280 --> 1:16:36.840 writer in. So every every situation is different, right, Um, 1:16:36.880 --> 1:16:39.719 But ultimately I think that was like one one of 1:16:39.760 --> 1:16:42.280 a big lesson I learned from working with Kanye was 1:16:43.479 --> 1:16:47.760 don't be afraid to like I'd always want to be overprepared. 1:16:48.080 --> 1:16:50.400 I was. I had a lot of anxiety about going 1:16:50.439 --> 1:16:52.360 in a room and not being able to like deliver, 1:16:53.080 --> 1:16:55.719 you know, So I'd always I liked that having something 1:16:55.760 --> 1:16:58.000 that was done and I could send it out. But 1:16:58.320 --> 1:17:00.640 I'd also challenged myself to go in there and like 1:17:00.880 --> 1:17:04.439 walk on that tight rope and and just say, hey, 1:17:04.680 --> 1:17:08.960 we're here, we're in the room. Let's believe in ourselves 1:17:09.000 --> 1:17:11.000 and like see what happens. And and also just like 1:17:11.080 --> 1:17:13.480 let it flow. That's also kind of my jazz background, 1:17:13.800 --> 1:17:16.960 you know, where like it's your turn to solo, just 1:17:17.200 --> 1:17:20.519 jump off the cliff and see what happens, you know. 1:17:20.600 --> 1:17:24.839 And UM, I think that really served me well too, 1:17:25.640 --> 1:17:32.600 have that kind of spontaneous, improvisational uh skill, um to 1:17:32.760 --> 1:17:36.400 just go into rooms and and make something happen or 1:17:36.760 --> 1:17:41.599 you know, uh, and have the confidence to just try 1:17:41.720 --> 1:17:45.960 things and and it's a really beautiful thing about like 1:17:46.040 --> 1:17:48.880 you know, or it was hinting at before about collaboration, 1:17:48.960 --> 1:17:51.679 you know, to like go and play something and think 1:17:51.720 --> 1:17:54.559 like maybe I shouldn't is there's people gonna like this, 1:17:54.640 --> 1:17:56.920 and to have someone like that's the ship man, like 1:17:57.040 --> 1:18:00.000 that's the like you know, or you might get correct 1:18:00.040 --> 1:18:03.519 gets too, but it's fifty fifty or you know, like 1:18:03.880 --> 1:18:08.000 you so to answer your question, it was like all 1:18:08.080 --> 1:18:11.479 of the above, you know, like every situation like kind 1:18:11.479 --> 1:18:16.559 of trying to always push myself and and put myself 1:18:16.600 --> 1:18:21.120 in a situation and just go for it, you know, 1:18:21.240 --> 1:18:23.000 like try to succeed. Like a lot of times, what 1:18:23.000 --> 1:18:24.800 would happen was I would have like one song that 1:18:24.840 --> 1:18:28.320 maybe like an artist would like and they had cut that, 1:18:28.439 --> 1:18:30.320 and then I'd come and work with them, and then 1:18:30.479 --> 1:18:33.120 he got any more, so I would just go maybe 1:18:33.120 --> 1:18:35.479 while I was waiting for them, I would make three 1:18:35.520 --> 1:18:37.640 new ideas, you know, and maybe one of them they 1:18:37.720 --> 1:18:39.080 be like, oh I really like that, and then we'd 1:18:39.080 --> 1:18:41.720 work on it together. You know. So it's kind of 1:18:41.760 --> 1:18:46.080 like a like a just I think just ultimately like 1:18:46.160 --> 1:18:51.719 having a creative practice that like everywhere you go wherever 1:18:51.800 --> 1:18:54.479 you are, what room you're in. If you're tired, if 1:18:54.520 --> 1:18:59.200 you're hungry, if you're well arrested, if you're a little buzzed, 1:19:00.680 --> 1:19:02.800 you go to work and you make the donuts. You know, 1:19:02.880 --> 1:19:05.639 like you have a skill set, you have a craft, 1:19:06.120 --> 1:19:10.639 and you have like confidence to like be willing to fail, 1:19:10.720 --> 1:19:13.880 make a mistake, do something shitty, like you're definitely like, like, 1:19:13.920 --> 1:19:16.080 how many songs do you think of? Princes? Like he 1:19:16.120 --> 1:19:19.000 wrote some of them are stinkers, you know, like we 1:19:19.080 --> 1:19:21.760 all here, you're only gonna hear. This is kind of 1:19:21.760 --> 1:19:25.040 a Virgil Ablow thing to like talking about in him 1:19:25.040 --> 1:19:27.599 and Virgil and Kanye is like practice, like so amazing. 1:19:27.600 --> 1:19:34.040 How like that they viewed creativity. Just try everything. The 1:19:34.080 --> 1:19:37.479 things that suck, no one's gonna remember. You get the 1:19:37.479 --> 1:19:40.120 great things. People remember it, so they think that, oh 1:19:40.240 --> 1:19:42.920 this person just everything they do is great. It's not true. 1:19:43.320 --> 1:19:47.559 They just working like you know, so that was kind 1:19:47.560 --> 1:19:49.960 of my life, you know, up to now, or at 1:19:50.040 --> 1:19:53.680 least before COVID, you know, just just just working. Okay, 1:19:53.720 --> 1:19:57.840 How do you see from being a songwriter in your 1:19:58.040 --> 1:20:01.760 own studio to alter really being a producer, which was 1:20:01.800 --> 1:20:04.920 one of your earliest desires you're moving to New York for. Yeah, 1:20:04.920 --> 1:20:06.760 I mean I think it was a lot to do 1:20:06.920 --> 1:20:10.719 with my the nature of like how I do music 1:20:10.840 --> 1:20:15.679 kind of by ear, and recording just became the perfect 1:20:15.760 --> 1:20:19.880 outlet for that because I wasn't great at reading music. 1:20:19.960 --> 1:20:23.000 I wasn't great, I wasn't the best technical piano player. 1:20:23.400 --> 1:20:28.920 I wasn't like the best technical singer. But I could 1:20:28.960 --> 1:20:32.040 have a vision and I could bring it to life, 1:20:32.400 --> 1:20:36.600 you know. And I think my producing and record and 1:20:36.640 --> 1:20:39.439 also I think that helped me like developing. And I'm 1:20:39.479 --> 1:20:41.200 kind of a bit of a late bloomer, you know. 1:20:41.240 --> 1:20:43.000 Even as a kid, I was like really short, and 1:20:43.120 --> 1:20:44.920 I was about like five ft two till I was 1:20:44.960 --> 1:20:48.080 like sixteen years old, and then I grew like a 1:20:48.360 --> 1:20:54.000 you know, ten inches in Germany, and you know, I 1:20:54.040 --> 1:20:56.360 moved to l A when I was like thirty, little 1:20:56.600 --> 1:20:58.439 kind of late in the game in a way, you know, 1:20:58.560 --> 1:21:04.559 like I'm matured very gradually, but in a very steady way. 1:21:04.760 --> 1:21:11.000 So I think that also helped me relate to trying 1:21:11.040 --> 1:21:14.200 to pick out, like for an artist that I'm producing, 1:21:16.080 --> 1:21:19.599 try to help them find what their vision is or 1:21:19.680 --> 1:21:23.280 at least push them towards articulating that and then saying, 1:21:23.520 --> 1:21:26.599 let's go after that. Like let's also like figuring out 1:21:26.720 --> 1:21:30.360 how to get that out and develop that because I 1:21:30.360 --> 1:21:33.040 had to learn how to develop myself, you know. So 1:21:33.400 --> 1:21:35.280 I think that's one of my strengths for sure as 1:21:35.280 --> 1:21:40.000 a producer, is is identifying the vision that they have 1:21:40.200 --> 1:21:44.280 and helping them realize that, you know, and maybe throwing 1:21:44.320 --> 1:21:46.680 in my two cents along the way or you know, 1:21:46.920 --> 1:21:52.080 or maybe a dollar or two, but um ultimately helping 1:21:52.160 --> 1:21:56.519 them fulfill what's true to their heart and like the 1:21:57.320 --> 1:22:00.439 most vulnerable place that they can find expo using that 1:22:00.640 --> 1:22:11.240 and and bringing that into the light. You talked about inspiration, 1:22:11.320 --> 1:22:16.080 you know, it's from amateurs. So when you're writing songs 1:22:16.080 --> 1:22:19.280 by yourself, are you saying, Okay, I started ten am 1:22:19.320 --> 1:22:21.920 and I gotta finish the song, or do you say 1:22:22.560 --> 1:22:25.240 I get a certain inspiration I figured, you know everything 1:22:25.280 --> 1:22:28.320 that I understand. Working in the studio is different. But 1:22:28.640 --> 1:22:32.640 when you're working alone, what's your process? How do you 1:22:32.680 --> 1:22:34.600 get the song done? And how do you finish it? 1:22:34.800 --> 1:22:37.280 You know? I mean, I mean one version of it 1:22:37.320 --> 1:22:41.680 is like just sitting at the piano and and getting inspired. 1:22:41.720 --> 1:22:43.640 That kind of comes back to my jazz practice and 1:22:43.680 --> 1:22:46.240 even just how I've been doing music my whole life 1:22:46.240 --> 1:22:48.160 since I was like five years old, just sitting down 1:22:48.200 --> 1:22:52.000 at the piano and just making a sound and then 1:22:56.160 --> 1:22:59.080 then letting the craft take over, you know, find finding 1:22:59.120 --> 1:23:02.080 one kernel of thing that's great. Like even also could 1:23:02.080 --> 1:23:06.240 be like a melody or a phrase, you know, like 1:23:06.439 --> 1:23:10.400 marrying a phrase with a melody and saying, oh, there's 1:23:10.400 --> 1:23:13.479 something good about that, and and uh, you know, I 1:23:13.479 --> 1:23:16.000 think the hardest part is just maybe as a writer 1:23:16.160 --> 1:23:18.080 you can resonate like this resonates with you is like 1:23:18.479 --> 1:23:21.120 just getting something down on the page, right, You just 1:23:21.160 --> 1:23:24.439 gotta start writing, and then you go back and you 1:23:24.479 --> 1:23:26.400 work on it. You say, let me take this out, 1:23:26.680 --> 1:23:29.640 let me let me rearrange this thought. Oh you know 1:23:29.680 --> 1:23:32.840 what this this could be more clear. But it always 1:23:32.840 --> 1:23:35.439 starts with with an idea, you know, like in your letters, 1:23:35.479 --> 1:23:38.479 you're you kind of have a theme. Sometimes. I love 1:23:38.479 --> 1:23:41.519 when you write about like your personal experiences, Like you 1:23:41.560 --> 1:23:44.120 have all these different modes you go into, like you're 1:23:44.200 --> 1:23:48.280 kind of like decoding the bigger picture of tech and 1:23:48.320 --> 1:23:51.479 the the it's all about society, and then then you'll 1:23:51.520 --> 1:23:54.120 go into this really personal thing you're talking about your health, 1:23:54.160 --> 1:23:56.720 you're talking about your family, you talk about skiing, you 1:23:56.760 --> 1:24:00.000 talk about your passions. But I imagine it's a similar 1:24:00.120 --> 1:24:02.400 thing for you, like how to decide what you want 1:24:02.400 --> 1:24:04.519 to write about? You just have a thought and you 1:24:04.640 --> 1:24:08.360 just start writing about it. Or how is it for you? Yeah? Absolutely, 1:24:09.320 --> 1:24:14.040 Although the best stuff is when you're in a mood 1:24:14.520 --> 1:24:17.200 and there's inspiration of the inspiration always comes when you're 1:24:17.240 --> 1:24:20.200 doing something else, you're standing in the shower or you're 1:24:20.240 --> 1:24:25.559 reading whatever. But I find the opposite then most no 1:24:25.600 --> 1:24:28.679 one does it my way. I throw it all down 1:24:28.920 --> 1:24:31.240 and I find if I edited, I funk it up. 1:24:31.280 --> 1:24:33.759 I've been doing it for a long time. That's interesting. 1:24:33.920 --> 1:24:35.760 You know, we could go down the path of me 1:24:35.880 --> 1:24:40.000 but staying with you here, you know, the game has 1:24:40.160 --> 1:24:44.639 changed certainly from the pre Internet era. In the CD era, 1:24:45.360 --> 1:24:48.400 they would cut out the single if the single was successful, 1:24:48.439 --> 1:24:51.400 you had to buy the album to get the single. 1:24:51.800 --> 1:24:54.240 Let's just say twelve tracks on an album. A lot 1:24:54.360 --> 1:24:58.000 of songwriters made a lot of money by having not 1:24:58.400 --> 1:25:03.080 hit songs on those albums. That generally speaking, that is 1:25:03.120 --> 1:25:06.960 not true. So as a songwriter, I know certain songwriters 1:25:06.960 --> 1:25:11.040 I've spoken with, household name songwriters. They'll say, you know, yeah, 1:25:11.120 --> 1:25:12.920 if someone do, if they get inspired, it's a friend. 1:25:12.960 --> 1:25:15.360 But otherwise they evaluate, they say, you know, I'm not 1:25:15.360 --> 1:25:18.400 gonna put this much effort into something that's going to 1:25:18.479 --> 1:25:21.680 go nowhere. In addition, there's only twenty four hours in 1:25:21.680 --> 1:25:24.280 a day. You also have to sleep, So how do 1:25:24.320 --> 1:25:28.040 you deal with that opportunity cost? I'm sure you have 1:25:28.120 --> 1:25:30.920 more people looking for you than you can actually work. 1:25:31.439 --> 1:25:33.719 And you say, well, you know there's some economic element, 1:25:33.840 --> 1:25:36.519 just creative elements, how do you pick and choose? I mean, 1:25:36.560 --> 1:25:39.040 that's an interesting that's an interesting point. And I'll have 1:25:39.160 --> 1:25:41.320 to say, I think you just kind of following your 1:25:41.360 --> 1:25:48.400 analysis of the music industry help kind of like inform 1:25:48.479 --> 1:25:52.920 a kind of a different side of like, um, I 1:25:53.040 --> 1:25:55.439 may be wrong, and I think there's so many nuanced 1:25:55.479 --> 1:25:59.639 parts of it, but yeah, the value of publishing seems 1:25:59.640 --> 1:26:02.200 to have on down. And you talk write a lot 1:26:02.240 --> 1:26:05.400 about like catalog sales and everything and how you and 1:26:05.479 --> 1:26:07.920 I feel like sometimes like I feel like most of 1:26:07.920 --> 1:26:10.120 the time i'm reading about it, you're you're kind of saying, oh, 1:26:10.200 --> 1:26:13.799 don't sell your catalog. That is your that's your baby, 1:26:13.920 --> 1:26:16.599 that's your nest egg. Don't give that up. Maybe that's 1:26:16.600 --> 1:26:22.360 true if you're if you are uh Bob Dylan, or 1:26:23.080 --> 1:26:27.400 you are um who we talk about in the news 1:26:27.520 --> 1:26:33.320 right now, hard of Gold Neil Young, Right, But you know, 1:26:33.360 --> 1:26:34.960 a lot a lot of my stuff. It's like I 1:26:35.000 --> 1:26:36.600 got a five here, I got a ten there, I 1:26:36.600 --> 1:26:39.160 got aft there, I gotta and I already gave up 1:26:39.160 --> 1:26:41.920 these songs. I'm not even singing on them. So like 1:26:42.000 --> 1:26:44.000 a lot of it is kind of like, man, the 1:26:44.120 --> 1:26:47.320 valuations of all these catalogs, not to mention the tax benefits, 1:26:47.320 --> 1:26:49.360 and like, you know what happens if you die and 1:26:49.400 --> 1:26:52.760 your heirrors inherit your catalog, I RS comes to take 1:26:52.800 --> 1:26:56.719 that tax bill. Guess what, Now you're selling under duress. 1:26:57.080 --> 1:26:59.479 You gotta sell that catalog fast to pay the taxes. 1:26:59.560 --> 1:27:03.679 So there are all kinds of arguments for selling the catalog. 1:27:03.800 --> 1:27:07.760 And now personally, I'm moving into I want to own 1:27:07.800 --> 1:27:10.160 my master I want to be the artist. Now I 1:27:10.200 --> 1:27:13.840 get an artist royalty from Spotify. So talk about like 1:27:13.920 --> 1:27:17.240 the game changing, And I think that's that's really interesting. 1:27:17.439 --> 1:27:22.120 Following your your assessment of the history of the music industry, 1:27:22.520 --> 1:27:25.000 we are in a much different place now and the 1:27:25.040 --> 1:27:32.760 opportunity to own your own master published shit. I at 1:27:32.840 --> 1:27:35.799 least I think it's smart to like start exploring those areas. 1:27:35.800 --> 1:27:39.080 And yeah, the game has changed, at the same time 1:27:40.560 --> 1:27:43.799 the game hasn't changed. And you write about this too. 1:27:44.160 --> 1:27:47.360 Just do something fucking great. If you do something amazing, 1:27:47.800 --> 1:27:49.880 good things are gonna happen and things are gonna start 1:27:49.920 --> 1:27:52.360 flowing your way. You need the flow to start going 1:27:52.439 --> 1:27:55.040 your way, and you can't bitch and wind your way there. 1:27:55.200 --> 1:27:57.759 You can't complain about Spotify, as you point out about 1:27:57.960 --> 1:28:02.799 doing that, Like, just be great, worry about being great first. 1:28:03.680 --> 1:28:07.160 Then we'll talk about all the other stuff. But you're 1:28:07.200 --> 1:28:09.360 not gonna like, yeah, I guess all these guys. That's 1:28:09.400 --> 1:28:11.680 interesting point you make about like how you could have 1:28:11.760 --> 1:28:15.600 these album cuts even that, like you're gonna be the 1:28:15.600 --> 1:28:18.599 album cut guy your whole life. Like maybe you make 1:28:18.640 --> 1:28:20.960 maybe you maybe you do. But like I think, at 1:28:21.000 --> 1:28:24.439 the end of the day, you gotta strive to be 1:28:24.920 --> 1:28:27.680 great and do your best. That doesn't mean compete with 1:28:27.720 --> 1:28:32.120 someone else. Maybe you look at someone else as inspiration 1:28:32.200 --> 1:28:34.320 to get up for it, but at the end of 1:28:34.320 --> 1:28:38.479 the day, you gotta do your best. You gotta do 1:28:38.560 --> 1:28:43.000 your best and in a way that's its own reward, right, Okay, 1:28:43.280 --> 1:28:47.519 let's go into some of the specifics here. Uh so 1:28:47.640 --> 1:28:49.960 you get hooked up with the Rolling Stones, what was that? Like? 1:28:50.280 --> 1:28:53.240 That was amazing. I get a voicemail on my phone 1:28:53.280 --> 1:28:57.400 one day, says Hallo jf it's make calling call me back, 1:28:57.479 --> 1:29:00.679 and I'm like, holy shit, I just got like a 1:29:00.680 --> 1:29:07.360 a voicemail from Mick Jagger and just like the coolest, nonchalant, 1:29:07.680 --> 1:29:12.720 still curious fun guys. And what's what's funny was at 1:29:12.720 --> 1:29:14.879 the last minute, because they're gonna do the record in France. 1:29:15.200 --> 1:29:17.800 The last minute, he said, you know, maybe we were talking. 1:29:17.800 --> 1:29:19.760 He was sending me his demos, he was talking, we 1:29:19.760 --> 1:29:24.000 were talking on the phone. That's like what the real 1:29:24.040 --> 1:29:26.600 definition of cool is, right, These guys aren't trying to 1:29:26.600 --> 1:29:29.800 impress anyone. They're not trying to like they'd just like 1:29:30.520 --> 1:29:35.800 just super cool dudes. At the last minute he says, 1:29:35.800 --> 1:29:40.679 you know, maybe maybe we should just send you stuff 1:29:40.840 --> 1:29:46.439 back ah from France and you can like mess with it. 1:29:47.160 --> 1:29:51.280 And something in me was like I was like, now 1:29:51.840 --> 1:29:53.599 ain't gonna work like that. You gotta you gotta fly 1:29:53.640 --> 1:29:55.240 me out there. I gotta be in the room with you. Like, 1:29:55.560 --> 1:29:59.559 you know, okay, okay, okay. Then I got there and 1:30:00.600 --> 1:30:04.760 it soon became obvious that he had not told the 1:30:04.800 --> 1:30:08.519 other members of the band that I was gonna be there. 1:30:09.080 --> 1:30:11.120 And there, you know, Keith Pitchers is looking at me 1:30:11.160 --> 1:30:13.679 like who's this guy? Uh, and they kind of put 1:30:13.680 --> 1:30:18.160 me in this other room and waiting for them to say, 1:30:18.479 --> 1:30:20.360 I brought my good friend Emil Haney with me, so 1:30:20.400 --> 1:30:22.599 i'd kind of have like a wingman to too, we're 1:30:22.600 --> 1:30:24.240 gonna me. I don't know if you're familar with Emil 1:30:24.280 --> 1:30:26.360 Haney produced Lana del Rey's album and he's just like 1:30:26.360 --> 1:30:32.040 an amazing producer and artist in his own right. Um. 1:30:32.240 --> 1:30:35.000 Finally he's like, what the funk are we doing here? 1:30:35.080 --> 1:30:37.040 Let's just go down there and just bust in their room. 1:30:37.160 --> 1:30:38.840 And he's like from New York, you know, he's like 1:30:38.880 --> 1:30:41.519 he's not sucking around. So we go down there. Were 1:30:41.520 --> 1:30:45.400 just like walking the room, you know, um and uh, 1:30:45.520 --> 1:30:48.320 and they're kind of like, oh, like okay, you just 1:30:48.400 --> 1:30:53.600 kind of walked in and very quickly like they're just 1:30:53.640 --> 1:30:58.200 cool dudes, you know. Like I had this bottle of 1:30:58.240 --> 1:31:00.960 beer in my hand and I'm looking around for a 1:31:01.000 --> 1:31:04.519 bottle opener and Keith kind of comes over and hands 1:31:04.560 --> 1:31:08.080 me a bottle opener and we're having a beer. Also 1:31:08.200 --> 1:31:10.760 part of the story is like his his guitar tech 1:31:11.040 --> 1:31:16.160 who I forget his names, amazing guy. Um. He was 1:31:16.240 --> 1:31:18.280 kind of behind the scenes saying no, he's gonna love you. 1:31:18.320 --> 1:31:20.519 He's he's cool man like he's gonna you know. It's 1:31:20.520 --> 1:31:22.519 like because he could see what was going on, there's 1:31:22.520 --> 1:31:24.800 a lot of kind of internal politics. And then and 1:31:24.920 --> 1:31:28.760 the end we we um. They cut the song with 1:31:28.920 --> 1:31:33.160 um Um, who's their long time producer, had a blue 1:31:33.160 --> 1:31:35.720 note and how Don was um you know, Don was 1:31:35.720 --> 1:31:39.360 was there kind of like overseeing the whole thing, and 1:31:39.360 --> 1:31:42.519 and we kind of took the tracks that they tracked 1:31:42.520 --> 1:31:44.559 and instead of like you know, I think in the 1:31:44.560 --> 1:31:46.840 old days, like all the Rolling Stones records that we 1:31:46.960 --> 1:31:49.720 you know, not the steel Wheels kinda era, but like 1:31:49.800 --> 1:31:52.600 the old Stone stuff, they sit there and do just 1:31:52.680 --> 1:31:55.519 like seven D takes until they got like the right 1:31:55.560 --> 1:32:00.000 one right. Well, So this was for their fiftieth anniversary 1:32:00.520 --> 1:32:03.640 ger thing, and they were gonna Keith was gonna have 1:32:03.640 --> 1:32:05.320 a song and Mick was gonna have a song. My 1:32:05.439 --> 1:32:08.080 master plan was I wanted to get them back together 1:32:08.320 --> 1:32:10.320 and do a song together. And I had this idea 1:32:10.320 --> 1:32:13.120 I was gonna have Keith playing piano and Mick was 1:32:13.160 --> 1:32:15.120 gonna sing, and they were gonna do the song together. 1:32:15.200 --> 1:32:17.639 But there's because they were had a separate thing about 1:32:17.680 --> 1:32:20.200 you know. To me, the magic is the glimmer twins, 1:32:20.240 --> 1:32:23.720 you know, like you want Keith and Mick together doing it. 1:32:24.600 --> 1:32:27.800 In the end, it was not to be, but we 1:32:27.840 --> 1:32:30.680 took the tracks and then we kind of formatted it 1:32:30.720 --> 1:32:33.559 and it's that song, um gloom and Doom and gloom. 1:32:33.760 --> 1:32:36.280 It's a great record. Came out amazing, and even a 1:32:36.320 --> 1:32:39.519 Meal like programmed this drumbeat like Charlie Watts sating there's something. 1:32:39.479 --> 1:32:41.720 They're looking at him with his jaw open, like what 1:32:41.920 --> 1:32:45.960 is he doing? And then we actually tempo mapped Charlie's 1:32:46.000 --> 1:32:49.080 performance and then layered a Meals stuff underneath it. It 1:32:49.120 --> 1:32:52.320 was a really cool process. And then even afterwards Keith 1:32:52.400 --> 1:32:54.720 was like, hey, will you do my song too? You know, 1:32:54.840 --> 1:32:57.320 so it was just too good to be true, you know, 1:32:57.520 --> 1:32:59.680 just such an awesome experience, and even like you know, 1:33:00.040 --> 1:33:02.000 and afterwards I could call them like can I come 1:33:02.040 --> 1:33:05.160 to the show. They're always just so cool and just 1:33:05.240 --> 1:33:08.559 such a such a role model for me to see 1:33:08.560 --> 1:33:11.240 how curious they were. But see them gathering around the 1:33:11.320 --> 1:33:14.519 mic doing the Morocca tracks and saying like what should 1:33:14.520 --> 1:33:16.240 we have? Oh yeah, I like that, man. I like that. 1:33:16.360 --> 1:33:19.240 Like they were still like eighteen years old, you know, 1:33:19.360 --> 1:33:22.400 like making music, and that was really inspiring to see. 1:33:22.680 --> 1:33:25.160 I guess how I want to be, like getting older 1:33:25.160 --> 1:33:28.599 and older and still have that curiosity and excitement about 1:33:29.080 --> 1:33:32.360 creating something. It was such an awesome experience. Okay, so 1:33:32.400 --> 1:33:36.360 you're working with Bruno Mars. Was he even called Bruno 1:33:36.479 --> 1:33:39.520 Mars at that point and tell us to the evolution 1:33:39.600 --> 1:33:42.880 of bringing him to market and such success? Yeah, well 1:33:43.160 --> 1:33:46.120 he was Bruno right, and he was his remember he 1:33:46.240 --> 1:33:50.080 was an Elvis impersonator at the age of five, known 1:33:50.120 --> 1:33:55.200 as Bruno Um. And then one day we started working 1:33:55.200 --> 1:33:58.639 on songs. We're making these songs and Steve Lindsay's critiquing them. 1:33:58.640 --> 1:34:01.639 We kind of learned that, like went through that process. 1:34:01.680 --> 1:34:04.840 We're playing online poker, We're just like doing things. And 1:34:04.880 --> 1:34:07.360 then after a while I was just like, God, this 1:34:07.400 --> 1:34:08.880 guy is just such a he has so I'm kind 1:34:08.920 --> 1:34:11.640 of starting to turn gray in the studio, you know, 1:34:12.200 --> 1:34:13.400 And I was like, you know, we gotta get this 1:34:13.479 --> 1:34:16.480 kid back on the stage because he is a performer. 1:34:16.520 --> 1:34:21.439 He's just a god given, god gifted, uh performer. So 1:34:21.479 --> 1:34:24.479 we made this little cover band with me and him 1:34:24.520 --> 1:34:26.640 and his brother who was a police officer at the 1:34:26.680 --> 1:34:31.120 time playing who still plays drums in his band um. 1:34:31.160 --> 1:34:33.040 And we used to play cover gigs in the valley 1:34:33.080 --> 1:34:35.320 that we just found a bar there's hire us and 1:34:35.360 --> 1:34:38.760 we do these cover gigs. And you know, he got 1:34:38.760 --> 1:34:42.160 signed to Motown, but they wanted him to be this 1:34:42.320 --> 1:34:46.519 like urban like Omarion or Floyd or one of these 1:34:46.520 --> 1:34:52.080 guys like and it was you know, he had this 1:34:52.200 --> 1:34:56.759 other It was amazing. What was amazing about Bruno was strong. 1:34:56.960 --> 1:35:00.439 Songwriting was not his talent when he him He's an 1:35:00.479 --> 1:35:06.920 amazing just raw performer, right, and to see him become 1:35:08.040 --> 1:35:13.840 this amazing songwriter is just one of the things that 1:35:13.920 --> 1:35:18.600 makes him so dangerous because now he can create his 1:35:18.680 --> 1:35:21.680 own music. And he kind of, you know, I think 1:35:21.680 --> 1:35:23.360 he kind of retreated and I went and did my 1:35:23.439 --> 1:35:26.960 Kanye thing and he was kind of like, dude, what 1:35:27.000 --> 1:35:28.559 am I supposed to do? Say, well, just keep doing, 1:35:28.680 --> 1:35:31.200 just keep doing your band, keep doing stuff, and then 1:35:31.600 --> 1:35:33.400 he kind of retreated. A little bit into kind of 1:35:33.439 --> 1:35:37.320 being a songwriter. And then I think, uh, you know, 1:35:37.560 --> 1:35:40.560 he hooked up with this former manager was an n R. 1:35:41.000 --> 1:35:45.080 Brandon Creed, and he started doing this more more BEATLESZ 1:35:45.280 --> 1:35:48.960 pop three chord aesthetic rather than an R and B 1:35:49.240 --> 1:35:53.320 kind of richer harmonic aesthetic. But I Want to be 1:35:53.360 --> 1:35:57.280 a billion is so freaking bad. I mean, how are 1:35:57.280 --> 1:35:59.560 you gonna how are you gonna beat that? Like he 1:35:59.720 --> 1:36:09.839 just nailed the whole advertising level, like perfect songwriting combined 1:36:09.840 --> 1:36:12.519 with his talent and his available his ability to kind 1:36:12.520 --> 1:36:17.519 of form, do the videos, do the stage, show, create 1:36:17.560 --> 1:36:18.800 his band, And if you've ever been to one of 1:36:18.840 --> 1:36:20.559 his shows, it's like being in an earth Wind and 1:36:20.560 --> 1:36:23.519 Fire concert. He's got this band, he's got horn players, 1:36:23.800 --> 1:36:28.800 they're dancing on stage, there's young, old, black, white, brown, yellow, 1:36:28.880 --> 1:36:30.960 purple people in the audience. It is just like a 1:36:31.000 --> 1:36:34.639 total and just a joyous fast And you know, when 1:36:34.680 --> 1:36:38.160 we did Uptown Funt, it made me realize, you know, 1:36:38.320 --> 1:36:40.760 after kind of working with Kanye or having like I 1:36:40.760 --> 1:36:43.320 did a project under this moniker Billy Craven that was 1:36:43.400 --> 1:36:46.040 kind of a war protest. I remember you were writing that. 1:36:46.080 --> 1:36:48.200 You write a lot about that where's the protest music 1:36:48.240 --> 1:36:50.479 of our generation? And I did this project kind of 1:36:50.479 --> 1:36:54.519 about the Iraq war um call born on the fourth 1:36:54.560 --> 1:36:59.519 of July, and Uh, I had a strong sense of 1:36:59.600 --> 1:37:02.000 I want music to have a strong message, to have 1:37:02.160 --> 1:37:07.519 that ability to bring up difficult issues and discuss them. 1:37:07.600 --> 1:37:11.000 And I realized when we did Uptown Funk, seeing it 1:37:11.200 --> 1:37:14.400 bring all these different people together who can just from 1:37:14.520 --> 1:37:18.120 all different walks of life enjoy one thing. That's also 1:37:18.160 --> 1:37:20.920 a superpower of music doesn't have to be the most 1:37:21.560 --> 1:37:30.479 deep and uh polarizing or or or political statement. It 1:37:30.560 --> 1:37:34.880 can bring people together. It's an amazing art form pop music, 1:37:34.880 --> 1:37:37.439 you know, to be able to do that, to unite people. 1:37:37.439 --> 1:37:40.000 And stand next to someone who may have a completely 1:37:40.000 --> 1:37:43.559 different viewpoint than you and you're dancing to the same song, 1:37:43.640 --> 1:37:46.200 you find something in common that you are both human. 1:37:46.520 --> 1:37:49.680 You both like this song, you both like dancing, you 1:37:49.760 --> 1:37:54.000 both like having a good time, you know. Like so, 1:37:54.720 --> 1:37:58.240 I think Bruno just embodies this like being able to 1:37:58.280 --> 1:38:02.360 bring joy into people's lives. I think that's an incredible 1:38:02.600 --> 1:38:08.640 service that artists like him provide to humanity. Um and 1:38:08.680 --> 1:38:11.120 that's kind of been his journey. I was driving actually 1:38:11.160 --> 1:38:14.760 when I was doing uh, driving to the studio when 1:38:14.760 --> 1:38:16.519 I was working for Kanye, I think I was just 1:38:16.600 --> 1:38:19.040 writing trying with a broken heart too. I was writing 1:38:19.040 --> 1:38:20.720 the chorus to that just in in the car on 1:38:20.760 --> 1:38:23.040 the way back. You know, I had done the verses 1:38:23.120 --> 1:38:25.400 the day before. When I was driving to the studio 1:38:25.560 --> 1:38:28.479 thinking about the chorus, I turned on the radio and 1:38:28.520 --> 1:38:31.320 I heard that Bob song and Nothing on You and 1:38:31.360 --> 1:38:34.519 I was like, oh, Ship, that's that's Bruno. I was 1:38:34.520 --> 1:38:37.599 listening to song a little a little longer. Oh my god, 1:38:37.640 --> 1:38:40.120 this is a hit song. Bruno is gonna be huge. 1:38:40.439 --> 1:38:42.400 And that was that was it was. It was. I 1:38:42.400 --> 1:38:44.240 don't know what happened to Bob, God bless him, but 1:38:44.280 --> 1:38:47.480 like Bruno just took off. You remember that was Billionaire 1:38:47.520 --> 1:38:50.760 and Nothing on You was featuring Bruno mars right. It 1:38:50.920 --> 1:38:55.000 was at Travis what's his name McCoy, Traviy McCoy record 1:38:55.040 --> 1:38:57.559 and a B O B record. But Bruno was the 1:38:57.560 --> 1:39:01.240 star of those records, and people figure that out real fast, 1:39:01.400 --> 1:39:06.120 you know. So just an amazing talent, amazing story, amazing 1:39:06.160 --> 1:39:10.960 guy just came from nothing, you know, and worked his way. Uh, 1:39:11.200 --> 1:39:14.120 just a raw talent and just just just made his 1:39:14.200 --> 1:39:17.719 way to the top and is just always challenging himself, 1:39:18.040 --> 1:39:21.400 playing the Purple Rain guitar solo at the Grammys. You know, 1:39:21.479 --> 1:39:24.000 like there's just nothing this guy can't do. Okay, tell 1:39:24.080 --> 1:39:26.360 us the story of working with Mark Ronson and ultimately 1:39:26.400 --> 1:39:29.719 creating Uptown Funk. Yeah. Well, you know. The the little 1:39:29.800 --> 1:39:34.759 known story about that is after after working on Bruno's 1:39:34.760 --> 1:39:38.519 second album and Mark and I became good friends, he 1:39:40.720 --> 1:39:45.640 asked he'd produce his album with him, and I was 1:39:45.680 --> 1:39:48.599 just like, wow, okay, what a dream. And for some 1:39:48.680 --> 1:39:51.360 reason I got this, you know, I get passionate about stuff, 1:39:51.400 --> 1:39:53.760 Bob I started when I started dreaming, you know, and 1:39:53.840 --> 1:39:57.080 like uh, I said, you know what we gotta do 1:39:57.720 --> 1:40:00.679 is we gotta drive through the South. We're gonna drive. 1:40:00.720 --> 1:40:05.280 There's a book called Mumbo Jumbo by an author named 1:40:05.320 --> 1:40:08.040 Ishmael Reid that I had to read in college about 1:40:08.960 --> 1:40:13.680 this dis mysterious disease that spreads up the Mississippi River 1:40:14.200 --> 1:40:19.680 and people start having convulsions and dancing. Well, he was 1:40:19.720 --> 1:40:22.080 talking about the spread of black music and rock and 1:40:22.160 --> 1:40:27.200 roll and how it infected everyone and changed everything, made 1:40:27.200 --> 1:40:30.160 people want to move their hips. So I got this 1:40:30.240 --> 1:40:34.439 idea that we're gonna find the next Shaka Khan and 1:40:34.640 --> 1:40:37.479 or you know amazing. We're at the Franklin and we're 1:40:37.520 --> 1:40:42.479 gonna go to New Orleans and we're gonna drive up 1:40:42.479 --> 1:40:47.679 the Mississippi River and stop in all these towns and 1:40:47.680 --> 1:40:52.160 and uh hold auditions. And he looked at me like 1:40:52.200 --> 1:40:54.240 I was crazy, but he said, okay, let's do it. 1:40:54.280 --> 1:40:58.519 And we filmed it and we had this experience and 1:40:58.600 --> 1:41:01.240 that's you know, not really so much came out of 1:41:01.280 --> 1:41:04.040 that necessarily like that came into view. I mean, uptown 1:41:04.080 --> 1:41:07.519 funt just overshadowed everything, right, But what did happen is 1:41:07.520 --> 1:41:10.600 when we stopped in Memphis, we went to Sun Studios, 1:41:11.120 --> 1:41:15.080 and we went to Royal Studios, and we ended up 1:41:15.080 --> 1:41:20.120 coming back to Royal Studios and finishing the record. Um 1:41:20.240 --> 1:41:26.800 and it put this maybe that did seep into the 1:41:26.880 --> 1:41:31.040 uptown funk aesthetic or you know this this very like 1:41:34.320 --> 1:41:39.639 hallowed ground of al green and black music and this 1:41:39.840 --> 1:41:45.040 mecca of like kind of like the quintessential I shouldn't 1:41:45.040 --> 1:41:48.479 say quintessential, but one of the very important uh tent 1:41:48.560 --> 1:41:55.360 poles of American pop music. And we involved um this 1:41:55.520 --> 1:42:02.960 author um uh oh ship. His name is Escaping me, right, 1:42:03.000 --> 1:42:10.880 now um uh hold on, let me let me real quick. 1:42:10.920 --> 1:42:13.360 You guys can edit this part together, so it sounds 1:42:13.400 --> 1:42:18.360 like I have an actual good memory. Um. Michael Shabon 1:42:19.320 --> 1:42:22.719 uh you know, got him involved to write these lyrics 1:42:23.479 --> 1:42:25.960 and and then we would take the lyrics. That was 1:42:25.960 --> 1:42:28.160 an interesting process you're asking me about, Like the process. 1:42:28.280 --> 1:42:30.400 That was the first time I had like, okay, taking 1:42:30.439 --> 1:42:33.559 someone's lyrics and then I write the melody of it. 1:42:33.760 --> 1:42:38.160 And if you go back and listen to uh um, 1:42:38.200 --> 1:42:39.960 I mean he wrote a lot of the lyrics of 1:42:40.000 --> 1:42:42.280 that album and he kind of we've this narrative of 1:42:42.360 --> 1:42:44.120 like kind of in the we kind of want to 1:42:44.120 --> 1:42:47.599 do this kind of steely Dan aesthetic where it's like 1:42:48.360 --> 1:42:54.080 these stories about these guys in the sixties and seventies 1:42:54.880 --> 1:43:00.200 out there, like I'll learned to play the saxophone. Oh 1:43:00.360 --> 1:43:03.880 I played just what I drink Scotch whiskey? Oh not 1:43:04.120 --> 1:43:08.000 long then done behind the wheel. You know, it was like, 1:43:08.360 --> 1:43:10.519 what the what what is this story? It's so like 1:43:10.640 --> 1:43:15.200 interesting kind of dark, seedy lifestyle of these jazzy it's 1:43:15.240 --> 1:43:18.200 kind of this extension of beat nick stuff with this sleeks, 1:43:18.520 --> 1:43:21.479 sleeker kind of aesthetical like you know, like there's a 1:43:21.479 --> 1:43:24.080 song Heavy and Rolling on Uptown Special that's like kind 1:43:24.080 --> 1:43:26.759 of in that vein and Michael Shabon, We've this story 1:43:26.800 --> 1:43:30.240 about these two guys who are kind of grifters and 1:43:30.600 --> 1:43:32.360 they're gonna pull off this highest kind of like dirty 1:43:32.400 --> 1:43:35.439 rotten scoundrels, and they meet this woman who gets involved, 1:43:35.479 --> 1:43:36.960 and their plan is to kind of do it and 1:43:37.000 --> 1:43:39.400 then leave her in the dust, but she they end 1:43:39.479 --> 1:43:41.920 up both falling in love with her separately, and then 1:43:42.840 --> 1:43:45.240 she ends up screwing both of them over. And the 1:43:45.240 --> 1:43:47.719 whole albums was this whole narrative. In this whole album, 1:43:47.960 --> 1:43:51.599 Stevie Wonder played the harmonica on this track and played 1:43:51.640 --> 1:43:54.080 my melody and like there's all these like little gems 1:43:54.200 --> 1:43:58.320 moments that as an album, it's just like amazing updown funk, 1:43:58.439 --> 1:44:01.160 just like blew everything away, right, But that was just 1:44:01.200 --> 1:44:04.400 an awesome experience to work with Mark and just see 1:44:05.160 --> 1:44:09.519 what an expert producer he is and the tones he 1:44:09.520 --> 1:44:13.000 would get, the way he would record drums, the way 1:44:13.080 --> 1:44:18.160 he would introduce collaborators, kind of a different version of Kanye, right, 1:44:18.280 --> 1:44:22.800 like bringing these collaborators in and ultimately having your own 1:44:22.920 --> 1:44:28.200 vision but being able to involve others and use others. 1:44:28.320 --> 1:44:30.479 So he's just one of my favorite people in the 1:44:30.520 --> 1:44:33.480 whole world. And I got so much out of that experience. 1:44:40.320 --> 1:44:42.960 And let's be very specific. Tell us how you created 1:44:43.000 --> 1:44:46.280 the track up Tom Funk. Yeah, So that one was like, okay, well, 1:44:46.280 --> 1:44:48.639 we gotta get Bruno on the record. So we went 1:44:48.640 --> 1:44:51.920 over to his studio in Hollywood and we just started 1:44:52.000 --> 1:44:56.479 jamming and Bruno's on the drums and marks like on 1:44:56.520 --> 1:44:59.080 the guitar, and I'm on the keyboard and we just 1:44:59.080 --> 1:45:04.080 started jamming and it had like the first verse like 1:45:04.160 --> 1:45:06.839 that night we did that this ship that I school 1:45:07.040 --> 1:45:11.840 Michelle five for that white gun boom boom, like this 1:45:11.880 --> 1:45:17.680 funk jam and it was just this jammy thing. But 1:45:18.439 --> 1:45:22.799 everyone knew this was like something special, like for some reason, 1:45:23.479 --> 1:45:26.640 this was in it a super special thing that's like 1:45:26.720 --> 1:45:29.599 so rough. And we'd even play like the rough thing 1:45:30.160 --> 1:45:32.880 for like radio programmers and they just be like, oh 1:45:32.920 --> 1:45:35.200 my god, this is gonna be a giant song, you 1:45:35.240 --> 1:45:38.600 know and that. But the problem was we got to 1:45:38.640 --> 1:45:41.840 the chorus and it was like this is the We 1:45:41.880 --> 1:45:45.200 had the amazing first thirty seconds of this record. But 1:45:45.240 --> 1:45:48.720 then it's like, Okay, how do we deliver on the 1:45:48.800 --> 1:45:52.680 promise of how good this feels without it just going downhill. 1:45:53.280 --> 1:45:55.920 You know, it needs to just get better and better. 1:45:56.360 --> 1:45:58.200 That was a super challenge. So then we continue to 1:45:58.200 --> 1:46:00.479 work on that song for like about a year, you know, 1:46:01.360 --> 1:46:02.880 we need this, and then Bruno came up with the 1:46:02.880 --> 1:46:06.360 dope nope, no, dope, dope, do it needs this? You know, 1:46:06.479 --> 1:46:09.639 like kind of like a you know, all these little 1:46:09.640 --> 1:46:12.360 details that were like, like we were talking about earlier, 1:46:12.400 --> 1:46:15.479 just make this thing bulletproof, you know. Like so we 1:46:15.520 --> 1:46:17.640 had the first thirty seconds, but then it took like 1:46:17.760 --> 1:46:19.639 nine i think nine or ten months to really get 1:46:19.680 --> 1:46:21.160 to the end, and then we had all these different 1:46:21.160 --> 1:46:23.719 things and then then we just started over and said okay. 1:46:23.960 --> 1:46:26.559 We got together in a room again in London in 1:46:26.640 --> 1:46:29.840 Mark Studio and just played the song live and said, okay, 1:46:29.840 --> 1:46:32.360 if we were gonna play this live, what would need 1:46:32.400 --> 1:46:35.240 to happen? And then we kind of sorted at all 1:46:35.280 --> 1:46:39.240 the details and then it came together and then dear Lord, 1:46:39.320 --> 1:46:42.000 it was released and it was like the biggest song 1:46:42.080 --> 1:46:45.800 of all time, and especially like uptown funk, like funk 1:46:45.920 --> 1:46:49.120 was kind of a dirty word, like people like that 1:46:49.240 --> 1:46:53.479 was not an uphealing thing. But just what a magical moment. 1:46:53.520 --> 1:46:56.360 And I have like a background in funk music, and 1:46:56.360 --> 1:46:59.439 and uh you know did all that and Wallis and 1:46:59.479 --> 1:47:01.439 all the people I played with Lettuce. You know, it's 1:47:01.479 --> 1:47:04.680 like just amazing how that came together and then how 1:47:04.760 --> 1:47:10.360 it just like it just infected the world. And um, 1:47:10.680 --> 1:47:13.320 I mean that's the story. It was like thirty seconds 1:47:13.320 --> 1:47:15.800 of magic. Okay, but you knew you had something with 1:47:15.840 --> 1:47:19.040 the thirty seconds when it was finished, did you know 1:47:19.120 --> 1:47:21.519 this was going straight to the top? I did not, 1:47:21.920 --> 1:47:24.960 I will be honest, and I did not think it 1:47:25.000 --> 1:47:27.439 was gonna be I thought it had a chance to 1:47:27.479 --> 1:47:30.519 be really successful because with like Bruno delivering that and 1:47:30.560 --> 1:47:35.479 the records good, I thought it was good. But I 1:47:35.560 --> 1:47:37.519 don't think anyone knew it was gonna be I mean, 1:47:37.520 --> 1:47:39.639 it was like twelve weeks at number one or something. 1:47:39.680 --> 1:47:41.920 It was like the longest running number one song at 1:47:41.920 --> 1:47:45.519 the time in the ATS era or the two post 1:47:45.760 --> 1:47:50.960 you know, twenty one century. So yeah, that was just insane. 1:47:51.040 --> 1:47:54.040 What a what a special magical moment? Okay. Taylor Swift, 1:47:54.080 --> 1:47:57.120 Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift story. I got a call Taylor 1:47:57.120 --> 1:48:00.280 Swift was to work with you. Great came her with 1:48:00.280 --> 1:48:05.439 her guitar to my little studio in Venice, played me 1:48:05.479 --> 1:48:11.479 the song top to bottom. I said, okay, great, I 1:48:11.520 --> 1:48:15.599 made a little beat on my MPC and some uh. 1:48:15.960 --> 1:48:20.880 It was a song Holy Ground and Lucky Ones, two 1:48:20.880 --> 1:48:23.799 beautiful songs. That Lucky One song is just so so gorgeous. 1:48:23.880 --> 1:48:26.880 But such a pro just came in. I said, okay, 1:48:26.920 --> 1:48:29.519 made my Beata said, now can you play the guitar separately? Yep, 1:48:30.240 --> 1:48:33.240 did that? Okay, now cut the vocal boom boom, and 1:48:33.320 --> 1:48:38.840 I kind of did my thing, and then um came 1:48:38.880 --> 1:48:44.400 together incredibly incredibly fast, and yeah, what a what a 1:48:44.479 --> 1:48:47.240 force of nature she is, right like, she's just like, 1:48:47.560 --> 1:48:49.040 I mean, through all I know, you guys have your 1:48:49.080 --> 1:48:52.000 history everyone, she's gone her ups and downs, especially in 1:48:52.040 --> 1:48:57.400 my connection to Kanye and all that. But another person 1:48:57.600 --> 1:49:02.200 who just decided to be great, stick to herself, not 1:49:02.360 --> 1:49:06.479 take no for an answer. Not I mean her parents. 1:49:06.479 --> 1:49:07.960 She may have come from this, like what are her 1:49:08.000 --> 1:49:10.559 dad like an investment banker or something no one bought her. 1:49:10.560 --> 1:49:13.559 There's plenty of people who are children of investment bankers. 1:49:13.720 --> 1:49:16.840 They don't become Taylor Swift, you know. So I think 1:49:16.840 --> 1:49:22.360 it's amazing, like what she's accomplished, and um, you gotta 1:49:22.400 --> 1:49:24.280 give it up. Gotta give it up to her for 1:49:25.160 --> 1:49:28.920 all her success and and and sticking to like being 1:49:28.960 --> 1:49:32.840 a songwriter kind of in the old old style, right, 1:49:33.000 --> 1:49:36.880 like having talking about her life and her experiences and 1:49:36.920 --> 1:49:41.000 then and growing changing, going to max getting out of 1:49:41.040 --> 1:49:43.960 country music, which is a fucking terrible place for a 1:49:44.000 --> 1:49:48.120 female artist to be. I mean, uh, I always talking 1:49:48.160 --> 1:49:50.920 about being good people and all this stuff, but they're 1:49:50.920 --> 1:49:53.360 the worst snakes you'll ever find in the music business 1:49:53.479 --> 1:49:58.439 up there in Nashville. Uh. I speak from experience too. Um. 1:49:58.640 --> 1:50:01.000 I have an artist in country we Cam who we 1:50:01.040 --> 1:50:03.519 had like a number one country song, this beautiful song, 1:50:04.280 --> 1:50:06.840 Burning House. Got to work with Doug Morris on that song. 1:50:06.880 --> 1:50:10.120 He signed her and I had the privilege of kind 1:50:10.160 --> 1:50:13.960 of sitting in Doug's office in New York and just 1:50:14.040 --> 1:50:16.200 talking about stuff, and he said, let me play this 1:50:16.280 --> 1:50:18.760 song for you. Okay, alright, let's do it. What do 1:50:18.760 --> 1:50:21.439 you think of that? I don't know, Doug, I don't know. 1:50:21.479 --> 1:50:23.960 You know, if this song is really special? You know what? 1:50:24.280 --> 1:50:27.160 You're right? When they had r C Records, I had 1:50:27.240 --> 1:50:29.760 just had my first country artist signed with him. He said, 1:50:30.200 --> 1:50:32.840 would you consider being the president of our CIA Records 1:50:32.840 --> 1:50:36.360 Country because like I was like, oh my god, Like 1:50:36.439 --> 1:50:39.080 this guy was just such a like a old school 1:50:39.479 --> 1:50:41.559 and he worked that record, by the way, he did 1:50:41.600 --> 1:50:44.200 research on it. He's the one that like broke burning House, 1:50:44.280 --> 1:50:47.559 you know, and like that's another beautiful one. That's just 1:50:47.640 --> 1:50:50.920 a special song. And always stuff I did throughout my 1:50:51.000 --> 1:50:53.320 career is like that was the height of like E 1:50:53.439 --> 1:50:55.680 D M bangers, right, and then we come in the 1:50:55.720 --> 1:51:03.439 summertime with like a odd bar slow moody song number one, 1:51:03.920 --> 1:51:10.160 you know. But um uh, just to just wrap up 1:51:10.200 --> 1:51:20.519 how horrible country music is for women, it's just like, man, like, uh, 1:51:20.560 --> 1:51:25.200 the world has just progressed so far from being trapped 1:51:25.240 --> 1:51:28.360 in this country radio format. Maybe we literally had our 1:51:28.400 --> 1:51:33.360 records sabotaged internally because over some stuff. But then they 1:51:33.439 --> 1:51:36.320 keep coming around talking about oh, good people this, you're 1:51:36.320 --> 1:51:38.960 good people. If you don't play along, like that's just 1:51:38.960 --> 1:51:40.720 not the place for me. Man. I'm probably gonna make 1:51:40.720 --> 1:51:42.840 some enemies up there in Nashville, but that's fine. I 1:51:42.840 --> 1:51:45.400 don't have no reason to be there because and and 1:51:45.520 --> 1:51:48.160 that's not against like all the people in Nashville, but 1:51:48.400 --> 1:51:52.240 I think specifically for women and like their way behind 1:51:52.520 --> 1:52:00.760 in like just like the ethos of like where the 1:52:00.800 --> 1:52:05.960 world is at, Like hey, like I don't know, I 1:52:06.360 --> 1:52:07.920 don't know where I'm going with this. I just had 1:52:07.960 --> 1:52:11.960 a horrible experience. Okay, here he styles member of One Direction. 1:52:12.000 --> 1:52:15.680 They're selling stadiums, go solo. How do you get the 1:52:15.680 --> 1:52:19.439 gig and what's the experience like cutting an album with Harry? Yeah, 1:52:19.479 --> 1:52:22.439 Harry reached out to me. I think it was probably 1:52:22.560 --> 1:52:24.679 right after I won the Producer of the Year award, 1:52:24.760 --> 1:52:28.280 and he's like the biggest artist in the world basically 1:52:28.920 --> 1:52:31.519 and wants the best producer in the world, which, you 1:52:31.560 --> 1:52:35.759 know whatever advertising that is when the Grammy for Perduser 1:52:35.800 --> 1:52:37.680 of the Year. I guess that's a pretty good qualification. 1:52:38.520 --> 1:52:40.559 So he reached out. And that's kind of at that 1:52:40.600 --> 1:52:42.479 time period I mentioned earlier, when I was kind of 1:52:42.520 --> 1:52:47.360 had my son. I wasn't really sure how active I 1:52:47.520 --> 1:52:49.920 could be, you know, in like the first year or 1:52:49.960 --> 1:52:52.800 two of my son's life. So I said to him, 1:52:52.840 --> 1:52:54.160 I said, what do you want to do? And he said, well, 1:52:54.160 --> 1:52:56.479 he played me some references and it was kind of 1:52:56.520 --> 1:52:58.640 like he wants like a real rock band, you know. 1:52:59.200 --> 1:53:04.080 So I I had signed a couple of producers at 1:53:04.080 --> 1:53:06.439 the time, one of Taylor Tyler Johnson, who's like a 1:53:06.840 --> 1:53:09.160 who did the Watermelon Sugar number one record with him 1:53:09.160 --> 1:53:11.000 and he is like an amazing producer in his own right, 1:53:11.000 --> 1:53:13.800 who also did the CAM project with me. Brought Cam 1:53:13.840 --> 1:53:17.679 to me and um, I said, well, you know what, 1:53:17.840 --> 1:53:20.360 I cannot just full disclosure, I'm not going to be 1:53:20.400 --> 1:53:21.720 able to go in there and be like in the 1:53:21.720 --> 1:53:24.599 trenches with you every day because I'm a new father 1:53:24.800 --> 1:53:26.920 and I just can't be. I have a have to 1:53:26.960 --> 1:53:29.479 set some boundaries for myself. But I have these guys. 1:53:29.520 --> 1:53:31.320 I can get them to go in there and we'll 1:53:31.360 --> 1:53:35.240 find some band surround you with them, and you know, 1:53:35.360 --> 1:53:37.400 if that's cool with you, you can try it out 1:53:37.800 --> 1:53:40.840 and see how it works. So he said, okay, cool. 1:53:40.840 --> 1:53:44.680 He trusted me another just like you know, totally magnanimous, 1:53:44.720 --> 1:53:48.680 like class act and just like spreads kind of just 1:53:48.720 --> 1:53:53.200 the groovy vibes everywhere he goes. So I mean funny story. 1:53:53.400 --> 1:53:57.960 His current musical director and guitarist who played drums and 1:53:58.080 --> 1:54:02.559 guitar on the entire first album with my engineer's roommate 1:54:02.680 --> 1:54:04.240 who have We tried a couple of guitars. I said, 1:54:04.240 --> 1:54:06.640 we need to get you your Keith Richards. You know, 1:54:06.840 --> 1:54:09.000 we're gonna find a guitar player. You want to make 1:54:09.040 --> 1:54:11.799 like rock music and be like an indie band. Basically, 1:54:12.080 --> 1:54:15.360 let's get that guy for you. Tried a couple of 1:54:15.360 --> 1:54:18.520 people that didn't really work out, and then my engineer 1:54:18.680 --> 1:54:22.000 Ryan nowsh She says, well, I could get Mitch over here, 1:54:22.439 --> 1:54:24.639 but we'll have to see if he can get off work. 1:54:24.960 --> 1:54:28.000 It's where he's a dishwasher and a pizza shop. So 1:54:28.360 --> 1:54:31.040 he got off of work, came in, they fell in love, 1:54:31.320 --> 1:54:33.920 he did the whole album, and he's on tour with 1:54:34.000 --> 1:54:35.960 him now married the drummer and they have a kid 1:54:35.960 --> 1:54:40.400 together on tour. So just another amazing story of like 1:54:40.880 --> 1:54:43.200 just people making it in l A. You know, like 1:54:43.800 --> 1:54:47.400 Mitch Rowland, you know, incredibly talented and just the sweetest 1:54:47.400 --> 1:54:50.640 guy who came in there and just became Harry's like 1:54:50.760 --> 1:54:54.240 right hand man, and it was super fun like making 1:54:54.280 --> 1:54:56.000 that album with him. It was also like a period 1:54:56.000 --> 1:54:59.520 for me where I shifted gears to like realizing I 1:54:59.520 --> 1:55:02.920 don't have to do everything, you know, I can have 1:55:03.040 --> 1:55:06.440 a team around me or bring people into the project 1:55:07.160 --> 1:55:11.800 and I can guide it. I can give my tips, 1:55:11.920 --> 1:55:14.240 my influence. They would go in and work in the studio. 1:55:14.240 --> 1:55:19.360 I'd come in and say, Okay, this is good, take 1:55:19.400 --> 1:55:21.720 this part out, move this over. Now, that's your core, 1:55:22.160 --> 1:55:24.040 that's your verse. Now we need to make a better chorus. 1:55:24.080 --> 1:55:27.800 I'm just kind of editorialize it and really produce it 1:55:27.960 --> 1:55:31.240 right in the classic sense. Um. And that's how that 1:55:31.320 --> 1:55:33.440 album came together. I'm so proud of that album. I 1:55:33.440 --> 1:55:37.200 think it really set Harry on his path to being 1:55:37.280 --> 1:55:41.440 a respected solo artist and separate him from the whole 1:55:42.080 --> 1:55:48.200 uh one direction association affiliation, which is nothing wrong with that, 1:55:48.240 --> 1:55:50.720 but he needed to become Harry Styles, you know. And 1:55:50.720 --> 1:55:53.360 that's with the album's name, Harry Styles. I mean that 1:55:53.520 --> 1:55:58.320 that record uh uh in the Hallway or something that 1:55:58.440 --> 1:56:03.000 something something about the six the second record in the Hallway. UM. 1:56:03.040 --> 1:56:08.320 Just beautiful how that came together. Um, And so happy 1:56:08.400 --> 1:56:10.720 for him and seeing like the show and another guy 1:56:10.720 --> 1:56:14.080 who just brings that, you know, good vibe and good 1:56:14.160 --> 1:56:17.880 energy when he does his shows. Um. But it was 1:56:17.920 --> 1:56:19.880 a cool experience for me to see like, Okay, I 1:56:19.920 --> 1:56:23.200 can do a project kind of from afar and budget 1:56:23.240 --> 1:56:26.480 my time and have boundaries, and that was kind of 1:56:26.480 --> 1:56:28.120 the beginning of like to kind of bring it full 1:56:28.120 --> 1:56:29.880 circle to like you're saying, what's up with Big Sir, 1:56:31.480 --> 1:56:34.640 kind of a time of saying, like setting new boundaries 1:56:34.680 --> 1:56:38.120 for myself to focus more on my own projects. Two 1:56:40.920 --> 1:56:43.960 raise the bar as far as how far we can 1:56:44.000 --> 1:56:48.360 push stuff musically and provide a place for artists to 1:56:48.440 --> 1:56:50.640 kind of go and get away from Elie. I'm just 1:56:50.640 --> 1:56:53.720 wrapping up this Portugal demand album that I've been producing 1:56:53.760 --> 1:56:56.240 for the last two years and through the Pandemic. They're 1:56:56.280 --> 1:56:58.880 an amazing band. We have an amazing album that's about 1:56:58.920 --> 1:57:02.960 to um drop. The first single is gonna drop in February, 1:57:03.000 --> 1:57:07.040 I think February or um maybe that's not as many things, 1:57:07.040 --> 1:57:11.440 but um well did did the single with Ryan tetter 1:57:12.120 --> 1:57:14.680 Um and it's a bomb. I'm not a bomb, it's 1:57:14.680 --> 1:57:21.160 a missile. Uh. But like we did a little we 1:57:21.240 --> 1:57:23.320 kind of wrapped up that record of this place Sonic 1:57:23.400 --> 1:57:25.200 Ranch outside of El Paso. I don't know if you've 1:57:25.160 --> 1:57:28.920 ever heard of the studio, and it was you know, 1:57:29.080 --> 1:57:32.680 John Gourley, the singer and leader of the band. We 1:57:32.720 --> 1:57:34.080 did a little bit of in New York and he 1:57:34.120 --> 1:57:36.240 was kind of talking they live in Portland. It's kind 1:57:36.240 --> 1:57:38.600 of talking about like getting out of l A, you know. 1:57:39.200 --> 1:57:44.640 And I noticed when you or outside of l A 1:57:44.760 --> 1:57:48.080 kind of get that noise out of your head, all 1:57:48.080 --> 1:57:52.280 the influence walking outside, even just feeling the the gravity 1:57:52.360 --> 1:57:58.080 of the industry kind of pulling you towards trying to 1:57:58.240 --> 1:58:02.280 do something that a n R will like or the 1:58:02.400 --> 1:58:06.880 label will like. It's so special to get out of 1:58:06.920 --> 1:58:10.760 that atmosphere and get back to yourself, get back to 1:58:10.840 --> 1:58:15.640 what is inside you and bring that out. So that's 1:58:15.680 --> 1:58:17.680 kind of the big sur thing, but kind of like 1:58:19.080 --> 1:58:23.640 setting these boundaries between me and my mentor Kanye West, 1:58:23.840 --> 1:58:26.040 me and the labels, me and like what I think 1:58:26.080 --> 1:58:28.839 I'm supposed to be delivering to the label and creating 1:58:28.840 --> 1:58:31.880 an atmosphere where we can make special music again. We 1:58:31.920 --> 1:58:38.120 can make music that is from the heart, you know, authentic, 1:58:39.640 --> 1:58:45.960 highest level, like free from any kind of commercial expectation. Um. 1:58:46.000 --> 1:58:47.840 And we're about to do it. We're about to like 1:58:48.000 --> 1:58:49.920 make the next wave of like you're going to see 1:58:49.960 --> 1:58:56.440 like a wave of of super creative musical like jazzy. 1:58:56.600 --> 1:58:59.240 All the kids are into jazz, and I started going 1:58:59.280 --> 1:59:01.480 into the sessions now, like with like Travis Scott and 1:59:01.800 --> 1:59:05.000 like guys like this, like oh god, I don't have 1:59:05.040 --> 1:59:07.080 any beats. I'm gonna go in there. I'm gonna like 1:59:07.120 --> 1:59:09.240 play something's gonna be like, oh man, this guy's washed up. 1:59:09.280 --> 1:59:11.000 So I just said, well, I have all these like 1:59:11.120 --> 1:59:13.760 voice notes of me playing piano ideas I kind of do. 1:59:13.880 --> 1:59:16.040 You're asking me my process for sometimes I just play piano. 1:59:16.080 --> 1:59:17.600 I'll just do a bunch of voice notes and then 1:59:17.600 --> 1:59:20.000 I'll kind of work on that. Just playing that, I 1:59:20.040 --> 1:59:21.880 feel like people in the eyes in the room, their 1:59:21.920 --> 1:59:27.480 eyes light up, like just like the piano just plan ideas. 1:59:27.600 --> 1:59:33.280 You know, we're getting back to this organic um musical, 1:59:33.920 --> 1:59:37.320 stripped down intimate time of music. That's going to be 1:59:37.360 --> 1:59:39.920 really exciting. Like Donda, right, I don't know how much 1:59:39.920 --> 1:59:42.960 you've listened to Donda, but it's there. There's no drums, 1:59:43.240 --> 1:59:47.400 it's just all this Like that's a very interesting phenomena, right, 1:59:47.440 --> 1:59:49.840 Like post COVID, like no one could go to the club, 1:59:50.000 --> 1:59:53.000 so no one needed to put drums on their music anymore. 1:59:53.000 --> 1:59:54.400 You just want to listen to it in your house. 1:59:54.920 --> 1:59:59.520 So that's like a really interesting shift that I'm really 1:59:59.520 --> 2:00:01.560 excited about to just kind of get back to my 2:00:02.800 --> 2:00:09.360 musical roots of jazz and aspire to the highest musical levels. 2:00:09.400 --> 2:00:12.320 Because it's funny, like you listen to like a film soundtrack, 2:00:12.960 --> 2:00:16.960 the music can be a film score. Rather, the music 2:00:16.960 --> 2:00:20.840 can be so sophisticated in arcane and and dissonant, and 2:00:20.920 --> 2:00:24.760 it works. People can process that. Yet in pop music 2:00:25.880 --> 2:00:28.960 for good reason, it needs to be simpler. But it's 2:00:28.960 --> 2:00:31.000 one thing I noticed when I was working with Kanye 2:00:31.480 --> 2:00:33.520 versus like, you know, a lot of hip hop artists 2:00:33.520 --> 2:00:35.400 i'd work with, I'd have to really dumb it down. 2:00:35.440 --> 2:00:40.440 I'd have to really particularly purposefully only play about like 2:00:40.600 --> 2:00:43.720 five or ten percent of what I was capable of. Kanye, 2:00:43.800 --> 2:00:46.560 it was like, bring it on, Like, let's go Michael 2:00:46.640 --> 2:00:49.200 Jackson on this, Quincy Jones, you know, like wants to 2:00:49.280 --> 2:00:52.840 hear all that music and Earth Winn and Fire, you know, 2:00:52.960 --> 2:00:56.680 David Foster like this this high musical level. I'm really 2:00:56.720 --> 2:00:59.240 excited to bring that back into the fold, you know, 2:00:59.360 --> 2:01:02.240 and and the word front. You stated earlier that you 2:01:02.280 --> 2:01:05.400 want to own your own masters. You want to certainly 2:01:05.400 --> 2:01:10.000 own your own publishing. Do you see yourself being the 2:01:10.080 --> 2:01:14.520 act in the future, And also you've achieved so much 2:01:14.960 --> 2:01:19.200 in any specific goals, dreams still in the future, I 2:01:19.200 --> 2:01:22.680 mean definitely being the act is the next goal, you know, 2:01:23.120 --> 2:01:27.560 and not for any um like egotistical reasons necessarily, but 2:01:27.840 --> 2:01:32.360 maybe egotistical in the right sense of like so nice 2:01:32.360 --> 2:01:35.040 to have your own project and create and own it 2:01:35.240 --> 2:01:39.360 and own it just from an artistic standpoint, you know, 2:01:39.480 --> 2:01:41.880 and control and everything I've learned and being around and 2:01:41.920 --> 2:01:45.000 being able to work with all these amazing artists, seeing 2:01:45.040 --> 2:01:49.000 the process from beginning to end, make the video, design, 2:01:49.080 --> 2:01:53.880 the cover, it really be your expression because that's what 2:01:54.000 --> 2:01:56.200 music was for me from the beginning, right. It's my 2:01:56.240 --> 2:02:01.080 way to process the world, process my emotions. So it's 2:02:01.160 --> 2:02:04.680 kind of my gift to myself to like say, hey, 2:02:04.720 --> 2:02:08.120 you know what, maybe do one for them, one for me, 2:02:08.200 --> 2:02:10.400 or maybe just do all for me and be up there, 2:02:10.680 --> 2:02:15.160 but collaborate on the same level where I have an 2:02:15.280 --> 2:02:20.120 artistic uh ownership and license of it. Not to mention 2:02:20.160 --> 2:02:23.160 the financial benefit of doing that right and building your 2:02:23.160 --> 2:02:27.920 own future, um and being smart about that part of it. 2:02:28.600 --> 2:02:30.800 With all these things that Kanye and Prince were fighting 2:02:30.840 --> 2:02:34.360 for against, like the you know, signing shitty deals with labels, 2:02:34.400 --> 2:02:37.280 that's like any other person in any other business would 2:02:37.280 --> 2:02:38.840 look at those contracts and be like, what the funk 2:02:38.920 --> 2:02:40.720 is this? You know, like tech people will be like, 2:02:40.920 --> 2:02:42.720 I think you may have written about that once said 2:02:42.880 --> 2:02:46.200 talking about at least it should be fifty fifty. I mean, 2:02:46.240 --> 2:02:48.960 I'm making the entire product here, and not only that, 2:02:49.040 --> 2:02:51.640 like just doing it in my studio, you know, but 2:02:51.800 --> 2:02:54.720 uh well, not only should be fifty fifty, you should 2:02:54.760 --> 2:03:00.480 own the copyright absolutely absolutely, you know, especially solve A 2:03:00.560 --> 2:03:03.480 costs are paid for. Why did they get the only 2:03:03.560 --> 2:03:06.440 album ad? Infinite? Absolutely, And you know a lot of 2:03:06.440 --> 2:03:09.560 guys are making strides to that end, you know, like 2:03:09.920 --> 2:03:12.360 Logic I think has an amazing deal with def Cham 2:03:12.360 --> 2:03:15.160 And you know you got to take the initiative and 2:03:15.160 --> 2:03:21.400 and put that intention into your practice. So definitely, Like, 2:03:21.560 --> 2:03:24.960 especially after all the success after catalog sales and you 2:03:25.080 --> 2:03:27.320 got this money in the bank, I think I would 2:03:27.360 --> 2:03:31.240 be pretty dumb not to pursue that path. And not 2:03:31.400 --> 2:03:34.160 only that, like it's going to be very artistically rewarding 2:03:34.240 --> 2:03:38.200 to you know, drop my own music and make my 2:03:38.240 --> 2:03:41.840 own videos and and then participate on a on a 2:03:41.880 --> 2:03:44.400 little equal footing with like people like I think I'm 2:03:44.400 --> 2:03:46.520 a little behind the curve to be honest, as far 2:03:46.560 --> 2:03:51.040 as my peers like Mark Ronson, Calvin Harris, Benny Blanco, Diplo, 2:03:51.280 --> 2:03:54.480 all these producers who shifted into being artists. And Benny 2:03:54.560 --> 2:03:55.960 just said to me. I was asked him, like, how 2:03:55.960 --> 2:03:58.640 do you do? He's well, I just do the same 2:03:58.640 --> 2:04:00.840 thing I did, except now it says my name on 2:04:00.880 --> 2:04:02.760 the record. I was like, you know, I come from 2:04:02.800 --> 2:04:06.160 such an old school aesthetic where I'm like, I thought, 2:04:06.160 --> 2:04:07.640 if I'm the artist, i gotta get up there and 2:04:07.680 --> 2:04:10.960 like singing dance or something. It's like, no, It's like 2:04:11.320 --> 2:04:13.440 it just says your name on the record. It's still 2:04:13.480 --> 2:04:16.800 your record. I mean goes back to Georgio Moroder or 2:04:17.160 --> 2:04:19.840 like all these guys. I think it's just a mentality 2:04:19.880 --> 2:04:24.320 that also like kind of put myself behind the artist. 2:04:25.160 --> 2:04:28.240 So it's definitely that's kind of my next challenge, and 2:04:28.360 --> 2:04:31.520 I'm really excited about kind of, you know, take ownership 2:04:31.600 --> 2:04:34.840 and have the confidence and the uh, you know, go 2:04:34.920 --> 2:04:37.520 on the adventure of like putting you gotta be guess what, 2:04:37.600 --> 2:04:39.680 it's not. It's not easy to be on the artist either. 2:04:39.720 --> 2:04:41.680 It's nice to be able to sit in the studio 2:04:41.760 --> 2:04:43.920 and make the record and get the royalty checks while 2:04:43.960 --> 2:04:47.040 they go out on tour, do all the press, do 2:04:47.240 --> 2:04:49.520 everything that be famous and all that ship. That's not 2:04:49.560 --> 2:04:53.480 all it's cracked up to be. So, you know, with 2:04:53.520 --> 2:04:57.240 a green of salt, but it's definitely on my agenda 2:04:57.400 --> 2:05:05.880 to bring take back the ownership creatively and financially of 2:05:05.960 --> 2:05:08.360 my work. Well, Jeff, this has been great. I mean 2:05:08.400 --> 2:05:10.080 I could go on for a couple of hours. I'm 2:05:10.160 --> 2:05:13.560 certainly more interested in digging down into the creative process 2:05:13.600 --> 2:05:16.520 which we got into. But this is something that the 2:05:16.640 --> 2:05:20.240 suits really don't understand. They want to control you, but 2:05:20.920 --> 2:05:23.760 you know, you say, doing the preparation to be able 2:05:23.800 --> 2:05:26.200 to then do something great. I don't want to go 2:05:26.240 --> 2:05:29.040 off on a tangent myself, but I just want to 2:05:29.080 --> 2:05:31.280 thank you for all the time you put in giving 2:05:31.320 --> 2:05:34.280 my audience all this insight. Hey, Bob, thank you so much, 2:05:34.280 --> 2:05:37.280 and thanks thanks for all you do too, you know, 2:05:37.360 --> 2:05:40.880 writing about this stuff, and you're kind of the version 2:05:40.960 --> 2:05:44.560 of that and yourself, you're not beholden to editors and 2:05:44.560 --> 2:05:46.280 and you really tell it like it is. So it's 2:05:46.280 --> 2:05:49.080 been such a pleasure being on your program and uh 2:05:49.240 --> 2:05:52.600 and connecting with you, thank you. Until next time. This 2:05:52.680 --> 2:05:53.760 is Bob left sex