Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Since making his major label debut in twenty eleven, James
Speaker 2: Blake has become one of the most distinctive voices in
Speaker 2: pop music. His gorgeous, haunting vocals in brilliantly edited collage
Speaker 2: style tracks have helped usher in a new sound in
Speaker 2: popular music. James is both produced and contributed vocals to
Speaker 2: artists like Travis Scott, Jay Z, and Spanish megastar Rosalia.
Speaker 2: He even earned a Grammy for Best Rap Performance alongside
Speaker 2: Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, and Future on the song King's
Speaker 2: Dead from the Black Panther soundtrack. This month, James is
Speaker 2: releasing his sixth solo album, which is a nod to
Speaker 2: his electronic music roots. It's called Playing Robots Into Heaven,
Speaker 2: a title inspired by the modular synth James built for
Speaker 2: the album that creates sounds meant to evoke a spiritual
Speaker 2: experience conjured by machines. It's a heady concept that translates
Speaker 2: into some of the most heartfelt and energized tracks James
Speaker 2: has made to date. On today's episode, Lea Rose talks
Speaker 2: to James Blake about how he and his longtime collaborator
Speaker 2: Dom Maker constructed key tracks on this new album. James
Speaker 2: also recalls how a conversation with Rick Rubin changed his
Speaker 2: life and reveals how he spent months making new music
Speaker 2: with Andre three thousand, only to learn on this podcast
Speaker 2: that it may never be released. This is Broken Record
Speaker 2: liner notes for the digital Age.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Mitchman.
Speaker 2: Here's Lea Rose with James Blake.
Speaker 3: Do you remember last time you were on Broken Record
Speaker 3: and it was in twenty twenty and you spoke to Rick.
Speaker 3: Do you remember what Rick said to you about the
Speaker 3: first time you heard your music?
Speaker 1: You know what, No, I don't. What did he say? Oh?
Speaker 1: I remember a lot about working with Rick, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember that.
Speaker 3: I was hoping you would remember this. So I'm curious
Speaker 3: about this because I know we tend to remember sometimes
Speaker 3: more negative rather than positive things. He told you that
Speaker 3: when he first heard your music, he hadn't been introduced
Speaker 3: to any new music that he liked more than your music.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. Yeah, my head's increasing in size as
Speaker 1: we speak.
Speaker 3: What did you take away from from working with Rick
Speaker 3: for your third album?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I remember. I remember Rick was sort of
Speaker 1: came into my life at a very tumultuous point, you know,
Speaker 1: I was deep in mental health struggles, shall we say,
Speaker 1: and kept fucking up my relationship. I just wasn't in
Speaker 1: a state of coherency, you know. I was just in
Speaker 1: a very incoherent state, and I was looking to any Honestly,
Speaker 1: I was looking for maybe an answer in the music, maybe,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I knew it wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be there. And Rick was actually really helpful at that
Speaker 1: time because you know, being English growing up, we learned
Speaker 1: to speak a certain way, you know, and I learned
Speaker 1: to speak a certain way, and it was very accusatory,
Speaker 1: you know. If you had a problem with someone, it
Speaker 1: was like you've done this to me, you did that.
Speaker 1: But you know, we didn't. We weren't taught. Like when
Speaker 1: I came to California and people were speaking like this,
Speaker 1: they were going, well, I just feel that, you know,
Speaker 1: the way you did that made me feel like this,
Speaker 1: and I feel this way, you know. So we didn't
Speaker 1: do that. We just had to go at each other.
Speaker 1: So so in my relationships, that would take form of
Speaker 1: just pushing people away quite easily. If I became frustrated
Speaker 1: or whatever, I just kind of say something that would
Speaker 1: be too spiky and kind of ultimately not serve the
Speaker 1: situations not served like me or them and our relationship.
Speaker 1: And so Rick showed me and I told him about this,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I just it feels like
Speaker 1: every time we have an argument or something like that,
Speaker 1: I say something and I just suck it up. And
Speaker 1: he just said, check this out, and he showed me
Speaker 1: this book called Non Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, which
Speaker 1: completely changed my life because I until that point hadn't
Speaker 1: learned to convey my actual needs without being accusatory, yeah,
Speaker 1: and using accusatory language. I hadn't ever used nonviolent language
Speaker 1: in that way. For anyone listening. Non violent language doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that, you know, violent language could be could be
Speaker 1: described as something like, yeah, like what I was saying earlier,
Speaker 1: you know you did this, you shouldn't, you mustn't, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff like that, kind of taking ownership of somebody's behavior
Speaker 1: for them in a way and trying to control it.
Speaker 1: And actually it was an interesting lesson in blaming your
Speaker 1: needs so that everybody in the room realizes they have
Speaker 1: the same needs and that we can meet each other's
Speaker 1: needs all we can't, you know, And that's the that's
Speaker 1: the decision. Rather than having these huge emotional kind of tantrums.
Speaker 3: Did it change the way that you thought about things
Speaker 3: that had happened to you in your past? Does it
Speaker 3: take the blame away for situations if somebody you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think what it is it gave me.
Speaker 1: It equipped me to go forward in peace in every situation,
Speaker 1: regardless of if I was hurt, which was alien to
Speaker 1: me previously, you know, and that just helped in all
Speaker 1: my friendships and all my all my relationships really and
Speaker 1: you know, that was a thing we talked about and
Speaker 1: I think that Rick had learned from too, And like,
Speaker 1: I think that was probably the best thing that came
Speaker 1: out of that out of that session. Because the album's great,
Speaker 1: Like I love it and I'm proud of it, and
Speaker 1: Rick was great on the album, But the album didn't
Speaker 1: change my life. Yeah, that sit down for like twenty
Speaker 1: minutes change my life.
Speaker 3: So working with him there was there was actually time
Speaker 3: to have a deep personal conversation. It wasn't just all
Speaker 3: work all day every day. There was time to just.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did a lot of speaking. Yeah, we did
Speaker 1: a lot of speaking. I mean I was there for
Speaker 1: like three months, so it was a long time, you know,
Speaker 1: And I was staying at Shangri La, so there was
Speaker 1: a lot of time to kind of and he would come,
Speaker 1: come in about twelve, leave about seven. Yeah on the dot,
Speaker 1: by the way, like never never missed dinner for any idea,
Speaker 1: no matter how explosive an idea sounded like it was
Speaker 1: going to become. He was out at seven.
Speaker 3: Did that make you sort of like panic as an artist, like,
Speaker 3: oh no, we got to eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: No. What it did is it taught me that as
Speaker 1: a producer, I didn't I don't need to just sit
Speaker 1: around and in a studio waiting for shit. And that
Speaker 1: is actually good to set those boundaries because otherwise, like
Speaker 1: you know, I have to spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: as a producer kind of just resenting the amount of
Speaker 1: time I'm spending somewhere in like a room full of
Speaker 1: people that I don't really want to be around, and
Speaker 1: just you know, not taking ownership of that. I can
Speaker 1: the fact that I can leave, and I started to
Speaker 1: I started to just leave. And what was it that
Speaker 1: Shark Tank guy said? He was like, I don't hire
Speaker 1: the guy who works seven days a week. I hire
Speaker 1: the guy who goes and does golf on the weekends.
Speaker 1: So it's like at least the person who takes a
Speaker 1: break comes back fresh. I'd come back fresh to sessions
Speaker 1: and feel like I could give people my best, which
Speaker 1: is what Rick was doing. Yeah, I just didn't understand
Speaker 1: it at the time. At the time I was probably did.
Speaker 1: I probably did say like wait what we was just
Speaker 1: started to sing, you know why? But no, I was
Speaker 1: I was like twenty twenty five or twenty six, So
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand the idea of boundary setting totally.
Speaker 3: I was going to say it seems like a very
Speaker 3: mature approach to work.
Speaker 1: Definitely, definitely, And I'm sure Rick has acquired that by
Speaker 1: you know, doing the same thing I was, you know,
Speaker 1: just spending long days and nights in dark studios with
Speaker 1: no windows. You know. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't think he was leaving at seven when he
Speaker 3: was working with the Beastie Boys.
Speaker 1: Doubt it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is your schedule your working schedule, like like
Speaker 3: with this new album, do you have clear set hours
Speaker 3: every single day? Do you have like a schedule you
Speaker 3: stick to?
Speaker 1: You know what, I could stit to a better sort
Speaker 1: of more ridges schedule. I try and start around eleven
Speaker 1: and I like to do the kind of functional finishing
Speaker 1: of music in the daytime, and I like to do
Speaker 1: the actual kind of creative spark stuff after seven pm.
Speaker 3: Okay, so after seven pm would be new ideas, trying
Speaker 3: things out.
Speaker 1: I think it's as you get closer to the witching hour,
Speaker 1: it just becomes more and more inspiring. I think, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: seven is actually pretty far. I mean, really the some
Speaker 1: of the greatest ideas come at like three in the morning.
Speaker 1: But it's just not really practical to live like that
Speaker 1: all the time for.
Speaker 3: Me, do you ever get haunted by ideas? Do you
Speaker 3: get woken up and have to immediately record something?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So the best songs I've written, probably so far,
Speaker 1: came at around three or four, and they were written
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, which was retrograde and
Speaker 1: You're too precious. They're two of my favorites. I think
Speaker 1: other times I get it right in the daytime, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's like, you know, eight nine, whatever. But I
Speaker 1: do think there's something special about those hours. I think
Speaker 1: it's just a sort of spiritual clarity that I think
Speaker 1: is hard to find and elsewhere.
Speaker 3: Do you think it's because the mind is quiet and
Speaker 3: the world is more quiet and other things can sprout up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean without sort of going all the way
Speaker 1: woo woo. I think it's like the the channels are
Speaker 1: kind of they're more open, and they're less interfered with
Speaker 1: by outside influence. It's like, you know, it's like when
Speaker 1: you're in a house that's got like three WiFi routers.
Speaker 1: Some people are very sensitive to Wi Fi. Then they
Speaker 1: can feel it. You know. It's like it's a bit
Speaker 1: like that. It's like, can you feel it? I can
Speaker 1: feel electromagnetic stuff. I think like if I'm in a
Speaker 1: room and it's just got lots of you know, emf
Speaker 1: then yeah, wow. We don't really think about it, but
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, it's feasible that in thirty
Speaker 1: or forty years time we look back at all those
Speaker 1: signals as some kind of smoking.
Speaker 3: Very true with the new album. Let's talk about the
Speaker 3: new album. I saw that you released Loading today.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love Loading so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: It's such an excellent song, and I was hoping you
Speaker 3: could sort of walk us through the architecture of the
Speaker 3: song and how you put it together, because there's some
Speaker 3: really interesting choices you made, and certain things seem almost
Speaker 3: at odds with each other. But I'd love to hear
Speaker 3: you describe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it started with Dom bringing in a sam I
Speaker 1: think it was something he actually wrote and played, which
Speaker 1: is those kind of French horns at the beginning, and
Speaker 1: he had the sample on it that went, you know,
Speaker 1: the little poetry sample m and I wrote the wherever
Speaker 1: I Go kind of melody over that, but I wrote
Speaker 1: it at the original pitch, and then in order to
Speaker 1: create what I realized is that if I just the
Speaker 1: way the melody worked, it could be pitched up and
Speaker 1: basically not need to be altered too much to create
Speaker 1: kind of a cascading or a falling melody all the
Speaker 1: way down. So if you start with the pitched up one,
Speaker 1: then you can go all the way down to the
Speaker 1: natural pitch. And once I've done that, it kind of
Speaker 1: just wrote itself. Really. It was just you know. Then
Speaker 1: it was a matter of adding a beat and playing
Speaker 1: synths underneath the vocals to try and kind of recontextualize
Speaker 1: it outside of the corn sample. And then I started
Speaker 1: adding kind of more like ancillary, like the crazier sense
Speaker 1: that go on later on. There's some funny vocal glitches
Speaker 1: that were happening that I left it about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So was that an accident.
Speaker 1: It was a happy accident, It was. I think it's
Speaker 1: a bug in flex pitch in logic. Logic's a great program,
Speaker 1: but it does have some kind of quirky bugs and
Speaker 1: things that aren't quite working as intended sometimes. And actually
Speaker 1: depending on what setting you have the kind of flex
Speaker 1: pitch too, whether it's monophonic or polyphonic, it behaves differently.
Speaker 1: And I think in this case it was polyphonic, and
Speaker 1: it kind of it was hearing something in the background,
Speaker 1: maybe the way it like picks up on the transience
Speaker 1: of the vocal. It just freaked out and did this
Speaker 1: strange sound, which I love. Yeah, I love it, and
Speaker 1: so I left it in. Yeah, there are some things
Speaker 1: that are just happy accidents like that that to me
Speaker 1: become Yeah, they just kind of become fabric of the track.
Speaker 1: And then for a long time, the beaches wasn't hitting
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't really figure it out. So me
Speaker 1: and me and Rob from my band Rob Airhead, when
Speaker 1: we were looking for drum machines that could could hit
Speaker 1: a little bit harder than whatever I'd programmed in the box,
Speaker 1: and we had this sitting here, which is the dram
Speaker 1: x alpha bass and also the pulsar which you should
Speaker 1: be able to the blue thing there, and just jammed
Speaker 1: over it until I found the right drum sounds on
Speaker 1: the TRS the role in TRS, So yeah, just a
Speaker 1: bunch of analg drum machines to kind of like thicken
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 3: The percussions super cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the percussions quite unique. I mean it doesn't really
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like a sort of trad house beat
Speaker 1: or whatever. There's a lot of claves and funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounded good in the club and I just kept
Speaker 1: playing it and then I kept kind of tweaking it
Speaker 1: until the version that you hear now.
Speaker 3: Very cool. So when you are playing something for the
Speaker 3: first time, what do you base the effectiveness of the
Speaker 3: song on? Do you base it on people's reaction to
Speaker 3: it or just how it sounds in the room to you.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. There's like a magic that happens when a
Speaker 1: tune's hitting that you can't really describe. It's like there's
Speaker 1: a rush of like, oh that worked, you know, Like
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's really it is hard to explain. It's
Speaker 1: like tracks either a magic or they don't. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: There are some tracks that when I play them to people,
Speaker 1: like the whole room like gets out of their seat.
Speaker 1: You can see it in people's body language, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like they start to be intrigued or interested, you know,
Speaker 1: and then they might start moving or they just they
Speaker 1: just get up because they can't help themselves. And you'll
Speaker 1: hear comments like this is the one, or like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like people just playing it to a broad enough
Speaker 1: range of people. And the tracks I tend to can
Speaker 1: are the ones that never really quite get the reaction
Speaker 1: I was looking for, never really quite hit the emotional peak.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a chemistry thing between the drums
Speaker 1: and the synse and whatever, but it's the overall impression.
Speaker 1: If the overall impression just feels high, it's like a
Speaker 1: vibration thing, you know, like coming back to the California
Speaker 1: and speak high vibration or low vibration. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: is it uplifting you in some way? It doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: need to be happy. Yeah, it's like this. This track
Speaker 1: relies on a kind of a kind of juxtaposition between
Speaker 1: these kind of quite sad chords, yes, and actually a
Speaker 1: melody that well a lyric that is basically saying I'm
Speaker 1: only okay when I'm with you, which is not the
Speaker 1: happiest lyric and actually has slightly dark undertones in a
Speaker 1: way ittend lyric. Yeah, not necessarily the best place to be,
Speaker 1: and yet for some reason the track sounds uplifting or
Speaker 1: engaging and kind of slightly higher vibration than the lyrics
Speaker 1: would kind of have you expect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you think that opposition is necessary for a
Speaker 3: song to work?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: It can't be all happy, it can't be all one mood.
Speaker 1: I think so it depends what it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: Happy by Pharrell, I think is all happy. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's anything in that song that is that's trying
Speaker 1: to counter the feeling he was going for in that case,
Speaker 1: something as strong, you know. It's like, I think it's
Speaker 1: just about strong decisions. I mean, it's very obviously it's
Speaker 1: hard to just like boil down. What works about music
Speaker 1: is it's something you know in the moment, give the
Speaker 1: feeling you don't.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's so cool. I think you know a
Speaker 3: lot of what you do. I've heard you talk about
Speaker 3: how editing plays a really big role in how you
Speaker 3: make music, and I don't know if it's a superpower
Speaker 3: or a hidden power, but it gives you a whole
Speaker 3: extra layer of tools to use on what you make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the frustrating the things one
Speaker 1: of the things I find frustrating about collaborating sometimes is
Speaker 1: that very often somebody just kind of wants a verse
Speaker 1: and there's not a huge amount of rim for creativity
Speaker 1: within it, and it's not really where I match usually
Speaker 1: at my best, Like I can write a verse for someone,
Speaker 1: but I feel most comfortable when I'm recording myself, yeah,
Speaker 1: and just taking the vocals and using them as a
Speaker 1: kind of material. Right. That's how I write most of
Speaker 1: my stuff, even if even if it's just speeding up
Speaker 1: for a second or putting an effect on it for
Speaker 1: a second to kind of create a moment that I
Speaker 1: can bounce off to write another thing. Maybe that next
Speaker 1: thing is a better idea than even the first stuff
Speaker 1: I write. But I always use, almost always use editing
Speaker 1: as a kind of bridge to a better idea. Because
Speaker 1: my voice is it's easy to me in plate. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess everyone's is, but I find that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I get bored of my own voice. You know. That's
Speaker 1: That's the other thing is like, you know, I think
Speaker 1: everyone does, But after however many songs I've written, it's
Speaker 1: just like if I've been writing a lot of music
Speaker 1: over the of the month, you're going to get more
Speaker 1: and more of me trying to experiment, to get away
Speaker 1: from how I regularly sound. But there are other times
Speaker 1: when I come to the piano and I just i'd
Speaker 1: feel everything sounds fresh, and I feel like I'm a
Speaker 1: new singer in a way.
Speaker 3: Would you ever consider releasing just a straight ahead you
Speaker 3: at a piano singer songwriter style album or does that
Speaker 3: feel boring in the way that you're saying you get
Speaker 3: you can get sick of your voice.
Speaker 1: I think if I were to do that, I'd have
Speaker 1: to I'd have to find new ways to play the
Speaker 1: piano and play my voice. I don't know, it's not
Speaker 1: out of the question a minute. I sometimes think computers
Speaker 1: also become a massive hindrance, and editing becomes a kind
Speaker 1: of disconnecting thing. And staring at a laptop screen is
Speaker 1: it hollows you? Really totally so in a way like
Speaker 1: after looking at a screen for about an hour, I
Speaker 1: start to make very bad musical decisions. By bad I
Speaker 1: mean disconnected. I don't know. It's kind of no secrets.
Speaker 1: It's like some days I want to be at the pianos.
Speaker 1: Some days I just it feels trite and done to death,
Speaker 1: and then other days the piano feels like the only
Speaker 1: place to express something, and it's and it's the most
Speaker 1: magical instrument. It's the only way I can really communicate it.
Speaker 3: So has your voice always sounded like your voice when
Speaker 3: you first started singing? Did it sound like the James
Speaker 3: Blake we know now or did you have a different
Speaker 3: tone or a different style.
Speaker 1: I had a different tone because I was my voice
Speaker 1: was breaking at the time. Yeah, but I definitely I
Speaker 1: was copying other singers more than I am now, So
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 3: Would it sound like or who would you be copying
Speaker 3: back then?
Speaker 1: Well, it sounded and like I guess I'd be copying
Speaker 1: like it's like a mix between Stevie and then and
Speaker 1: then maybe something folkier and rougher, But definitely yeah, not
Speaker 1: a not a smooth voice in that moment. And and
Speaker 1: as as it broke, I kind of found my falsetto
Speaker 1: probably through some desire to get away from my identity
Speaker 1: as a I think there's a there was an interesting
Speaker 1: article about falsetto being a kind of means to to
Speaker 1: disconnect yourself in a way, or you feel alienated already,
Speaker 1: so you leave your regular range, and I always thought
Speaker 1: that was quite appropriate. Rely just that's how I felt,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why I did it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but like endlessly singing in falsetto, it's not really satisfying
Speaker 1: for listeners. I don't think. I think we need a break,
Speaker 1: We need a range of somebody's you know, capabilities, which
Speaker 1: is why I started to incorporate my lower range. Like actually,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, like even in Retrogade, some of
Speaker 1: the people's favorite parts, a lot of people's favorite part
Speaker 1: is the moment where I go alone and it's like
Speaker 1: I dropped down to that register.
Speaker 3: I guess it's a little surprising.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's just say like, hey, I'm here, like still,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not just I'm not just over here,
Speaker 1: being this kind of kind of ghostly voice. It's like
Speaker 1: you're reaching through the TV and saying I'm actually still,
Speaker 1: I'm still here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you mentioned that was one of I think
Speaker 3: you said that's one of your best songs. Yeah, do
Speaker 3: you consider it one of your best songs because it's
Speaker 3: one of the most well known songs, or what you
Speaker 3: were setting out to do worked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just really want it. I just I just
Speaker 1: think I nailed it. There was no barrier between or
Speaker 1: membrane to punch through between the idea and what and
Speaker 1: what it ended up becoming. It just happened very fast,
Speaker 1: very naturally, and perfectly.
Speaker 3: When some like that happens so perfectly, do you try
Speaker 3: and recreate the conditions, like almost like a baseball player
Speaker 3: who will always wear the same batting helmet or never
Speaker 3: washed the jersey. Did you go through something similar?
Speaker 1: I know people that do that. No, No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I've always accepted that will never happen again. What we
Speaker 1: are chasing, when we chase that moment, isn't the song itself.
Speaker 1: It's it's the feeling of being on your path. It's
Speaker 1: the feeling of being of channeling and being in the state,
Speaker 1: being in the flow state. And in order to create
Speaker 1: a flow state. I've seen artists do lots of different things.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of my friends, Monica Martin's, who I
Speaker 1: think is just a generational talent, Like I think she's
Speaker 1: she's my favorite singer really, she just likes a candle.
Speaker 1: Every time she comes to the studio, wherever she is,
Speaker 1: she'll just light a candle. And I always I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's if it helps her kind of tune in,
Speaker 1: but it helps me chein in. A candle really helps.
Speaker 1: It's something that a lot of spiritual people talk about
Speaker 1: as you know, helpful to kind of clear the energies
Speaker 1: of the room or whatever. But whatever it is, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm always I'm always a kind of proponent of what works.
Speaker 1: So that's the thing that works for you, then that's
Speaker 1: what you've got to do. But yeah, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to recreate the conditions even of retrograde. What I
Speaker 1: want to do is basically shield myself from all of
Speaker 1: the distracting factors. And I mean the phone is a
Speaker 1: good example. You know. It's like I can't be creative
Speaker 1: if I'm on if I've got a ten hour a
Speaker 1: day screen time, like I have to be. It has
Speaker 1: to be like two or lower, or maybe none at all,
Speaker 1: and then I would really I can really tune in.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick break and then come
Speaker 2: back with more from Leo Rose and James Blake. We're
Speaker 2: back with more from Leo Rose and James.
Speaker 3: Blake the New album. When you started making this album,
Speaker 3: people are saying that it's, you know, you going back
Speaker 3: to your roots in a way. Is it feel more
Speaker 3: exciting and maybe a bit easier to make an album
Speaker 3: that's more dance music based. It's not completely dance music
Speaker 3: based at all, but yeah, is that almost an easier
Speaker 3: task for you?
Speaker 1: Honestly, yeah, it is. It's funny. I was, I was
Speaker 1: playing Briany know the record, and we videoed his reactions
Speaker 1: as well, and we're putting out sort of little clips
Speaker 1: here and there, and I said to him at one point,
Speaker 1: I was like, I was going to play some of
Speaker 1: the more ambient side of things, but I guess you
Speaker 1: listened to ambient music all day, don't you? And he goes, James,
Speaker 1: I shit it, I shit ambient music. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of like that with you know, when I'm trying when
Speaker 1: I'm trying to aim at song you know, songwriting as
Speaker 1: like the first, like the principal aim of the project,
Speaker 1: it's like it's tough. It's really really daunting and tough,
Speaker 1: and I'm entering into a kind of category of you know,
Speaker 1: some unbelievable songs and I on the occasion can rise to
Speaker 1: that challenge, but it just doesn't. It's not my most
Speaker 1: natural state. And actually Rick mentioned he goes, I think
Speaker 1: your best when you're doing collages. Yeah, and he was like,
Speaker 1: you're a good songwriter, but you're not not yet you
Speaker 1: can be. Basically what he was trying to say was
Speaker 1: it you can do it whichever way you want. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you where you really shine. Yeah. And I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of one of his strengths as a producer
Speaker 1: is the fact that he, you know some I've heard
Speaker 1: some criticism of him about you know him he doesn't
Speaker 1: like you know, because he's hands off, right, So a
Speaker 1: lot of people will go to a producer and they think, well,
Speaker 1: why is he just sitting there on the buttons, Like
Speaker 1: why is he not like playing anything or you know,
Speaker 1: arranging stuff. And the thing that I think is one
Speaker 1: of the most effective of strength of Rick is that
Speaker 1: he will he can identify if you're resonating at your strongest,
Speaker 1: and he can also identify when you're not. And the
Speaker 1: thing that most artists don't want to be told in
Speaker 1: the creative process is that they're not resonating at their strongest.
Speaker 1: It creates some bitterness, I think, to acknowledge that you're
Speaker 1: not actually doing what's natural to you, or that you're
Speaker 1: not creating the best scenario, you know, the best scenario
Speaker 1: for your flow state. And I think Rick's right in
Speaker 1: some way that when I'm attempting to write a kind
Speaker 1: of straighter song, I find it hard to you know,
Speaker 1: there are moments where I can truly channel it, but
Speaker 1: sometimes it can feel more like an exercise and it's hard.
Speaker 1: It's harder for me. It's a skill I learned recently
Speaker 1: rather than and so, yeah, the collage is something that
Speaker 1: I understand deeply, and I've always done it, and I've
Speaker 1: always been able to take a motif and kind of
Speaker 1: build a whole thing a world around it, and make
Speaker 1: that world change and make that world evolve.
Speaker 3: And that's where the editing comes in.
Speaker 1: That's where the editing comes in, and that's where That's
Speaker 1: kind of where Loading's at, and that's where tell Me's at,
Speaker 1: and that's where all these other tracks on this album
Speaker 1: kind of And because I naturally I can tap into
Speaker 1: dance music from a very natural place, because I've been
Speaker 1: doing it since i was nineteen or whatever. The alchemy
Speaker 1: is just quicker. Yeah, So yeah, that's I think this
Speaker 1: album is. What's nice about it is that I don't
Speaker 1: there's not a single skill that I needed to acquire
Speaker 1: over the course of making it. To make this album.
Speaker 1: It was all there already and I just tapped into
Speaker 1: what I knew. And I think the only thing is
Speaker 1: I just haven't shown people this kind of music that
Speaker 1: I've been making for many years.
Speaker 3: I think your fans are really excited about it. I've
Speaker 3: read some really sweet comments and people are saying, oh, James,
Speaker 3: is weird again. He especially with the first single that
Speaker 3: you put out, Big Hammer, people just were like losing
Speaker 3: their mind over this song. Why did you decide to
Speaker 3: put that song out first?
Speaker 1: Well, firstly, I've been weird for the whole time. I mean,
Speaker 1: even the more straight ahead stuff I've done, by comparison
Speaker 1: to other music is very often there's always something a
Speaker 1: little bit odd about it. It's outside a material either way.
Speaker 1: Even as much as I've tried to kind of like
Speaker 1: Trojan Horse my way into pop music, it's it's not really.
Speaker 1: It seems like I'm never really seen as part of
Speaker 1: the crowd of you know, the I don't know.
Speaker 3: The crowd is tapping you to work with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's it's like again, it's that kind of
Speaker 1: compost thing, isn't it. It's like I'm not I'm just not.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of them. I'm not the I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's like you're not Britney.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, like you. It's like when I went
Speaker 1: on I was looking at Apple TV one night. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they've got a YouTube, like a music sorry,
Speaker 1: music video channel, right, So I went on this music
Speaker 1: video channel on Apple TV and I looked at the
Speaker 1: music videos and I was like, oh, yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: like modern pop music is, and fair play like fair
Speaker 1: play to them, and there's some amazing stuff here. But
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't do that. I can do my
Speaker 1: own thing, but I can't. I can't be something I'm
Speaker 1: not and my I don't know, I'm a weird guy.
Speaker 1: In some ways, my career has been like a push
Speaker 1: and pull of like do I want to be accepted
Speaker 1: in that kind a central position or that's never what's
Speaker 1: going to be and why would I even want to
Speaker 1: be that? Yeah, because what I do is something else
Speaker 1: and it's okay and that's kind of what say what
Speaker 1: you Will was about. And what Rick identified was that
Speaker 1: it's like do your thing, like not just not exactly
Speaker 1: stay in your lane, but like but remember what it
Speaker 1: is that you you have the most unique perspective on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's that was powerful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he you know, he does get the criticism
Speaker 3: that he's a hands off producer, but what he told
Speaker 3: you is like a big picture overview that is so
Speaker 3: incredibly valuable that that could now become your north star.
Speaker 3: And what else is the producer supposed to do except
Speaker 3: guide you?
Speaker 1: I mean, in my opinion, a producer is supposed to
Speaker 1: change your life. I mean it's yeah, we can make
Speaker 1: a beat, like I can make I can make someone
Speaker 1: a beat. But the most successful sessions I've ever had
Speaker 1: with people, I've given them something that enables them to
Speaker 1: finish the record or like enables them to kind of
Speaker 1: look at a certain song in a certain way, or
Speaker 1: be confident in something that they that they previously didn't
Speaker 1: back because they couldn't back themselves because people were telling
Speaker 1: them that that song, you know, it's not this or
Speaker 1: it's not that, but it's like, but it's me, and
Speaker 1: it's like I don't really necessarily make people hit songs.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't, like, I don't think I have
Speaker 1: made anyone any hit songs. But what I do is
Speaker 1: in the studio is I encourage people to be them.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is something that actually a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the mainstream don't often hear. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like because there are there are bigger there are
Speaker 1: bigger incentives, and there's more jeopardy, and there's more there's
Speaker 1: kind of like there's more reason to play it safe.
Speaker 1: And I'm not really interested in the market per se.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in somebody's growth as a person. Like I
Speaker 1: want them to be become their full self. I want
Speaker 1: them to be truly happy with what they've made, and
Speaker 1: I want them to come back to me a year
Speaker 1: later and say, I'm glad you said that thing, because
Speaker 1: like this has happened, and I'm really glad we stuck
Speaker 1: with that single, that that chune is the single rather
Speaker 1: than this other one, because that's the one I love
Speaker 1: the most, for example. You know, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: shit that I like, I'm not really if someone says,
Speaker 1: oh I love this beat you made on this track,
Speaker 1: it's like it doesn't really do much for me, to
Speaker 1: be honest, I love making beats and I love making music,
Speaker 1: but I've made so much at this point that that's
Speaker 1: not like it doesn't move me the same way.
Speaker 3: You speaking of people who are who feel like they're
Speaker 3: just themselves and just really someone who seems from the
Speaker 3: outside like a creative genius. I was curious what it
Speaker 3: was like working with Rosalie amazing.
Speaker 1: She's a force of nature and she was from the
Speaker 1: moment I met her, I knew she was a false
Speaker 1: nature and I knew she was going to be going
Speaker 1: to be huge, and she's so professional. She just came
Speaker 1: in and just nailed it, like really fast, dialed into
Speaker 1: what the tune needed immediately, and her verse happened really
Speaker 1: quickly on Barefoot in the Park that was yeah, And
Speaker 1: we just immediately sounded great together on when we were
Speaker 1: doing harmonies and stuff, and it just felt magic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really liked her. I just liked her straight away.
Speaker 1: She was just pleasant. She was just so like it's
Speaker 1: very rare that you meet someone who is that driven
Speaker 1: and that talented and has that kind of voice who
Speaker 1: is also sweet and like kind but also knows exactly
Speaker 1: what they want and knows how to say what they want. Wow,
Speaker 1: and is isn't going to do something if they're not
Speaker 1: completely happy. That's a very rare proposition. I think that's
Speaker 1: why she got taken so seriously so quickly, because everyone
Speaker 1: and she would have entered the studio with would have
Speaker 1: felt the same thing. And it's like, there are some
Speaker 1: people who who you meet who as you're working with them,
Speaker 1: you realize that this is a step and I don't
Speaker 1: mean that in a negative way, but that that you're
Speaker 1: witnessing there. They're they're going somewhere and you're lucky to
Speaker 1: have met them in that moment. That's that's how it felt.
Speaker 3: But it's like early days as far as their artistic development.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that was when I met her. It was
Speaker 1: just after she'd released Los Angeles and then I think
Speaker 1: she was working on I think Malamente was on the runway,
Speaker 1: but like hadn't come out yet and she was working
Speaker 1: on her next record, and I was just in love
Speaker 1: with the Los Angeles record. Yeah, And I hadn't heard
Speaker 1: a voice like that that had moved me as much
Speaker 1: as that for years and years and years and years
Speaker 1: and years, maybe not since bon ever And Joni and
Speaker 1: you know, but certainly to meet someone new who could
Speaker 1: evoke that kind of emotion in their voice, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's really special and I just felt very lucky to
Speaker 1: have matter. Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the song if
Speaker 3: you Can hear Me on the new album. There's a
Speaker 3: line in there, Dad, if you can hear Me. Where
Speaker 3: did the song come from? What's the inspiration for the song?
Speaker 1: The inspiration for the song was that I was one
Speaker 1: of the composers in contention for working on their movie
Speaker 1: ad Astra, which Brad Pitt is in, and so they
Speaker 1: ended up going with like a more traditional classical sort
Speaker 1: of angled composer, but one of the things.
Speaker 3: They take a chance on it no.
Speaker 1: I think actually in the end when I heard it,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so I wrote the piano part too, if you can
Speaker 1: hear Me. It was just a It was a sample
Speaker 1: of me playing piano that Dom had cut together into
Speaker 1: a loop, and I just lay it out and then
Speaker 1: started humming over the top of it, and it really
Speaker 1: just immediately felt very emotional, and it was one of
Speaker 1: mine and Dom's favorite pieces that we'd ever done together,
Speaker 1: like just for ages. We always came back to it
Speaker 1: and we're like, what should we do with this? What
Speaker 1: are we going to do with this? And as I
Speaker 1: was sort of making this album, it just came back
Speaker 1: to me and I was like, I've got to do
Speaker 1: something with this. And I had this idea for a
Speaker 1: song and I just tailored it to the way this.
Speaker 1: But you know, I only really, I think I had
Speaker 1: a couple of lyrics from it. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: whole song. It came that all came to me while
Speaker 1: recording it.
Speaker 3: Really I took it very literally, as if you were
Speaker 3: sending a message to your dad.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like in the movie, so I should probably explain.
Speaker 1: The movie has a scene in it where Brad's character
Speaker 1: is communicating with his dad for the first time in years,
Speaker 1: and his dad's actually in space. His dad's in some
Speaker 1: corner of space that no one can get to, and
Speaker 1: they've managed to find a way of communicating with him
Speaker 1: via some kind of satellite phone thing, and it's just
Speaker 1: a very emotional scene. But to me, it felt like
Speaker 1: a kind of a metaphor, you know, for having gone
Speaker 1: and as every father son relationship is, you know, the
Speaker 1: son has to go off and do their own thing,
Speaker 1: and yeah, hopefully carve their own path, but ultimately the
Speaker 1: tender And see, what we don't realize is we're making
Speaker 1: the same mistakes and also having the same successes in
Speaker 1: some ways as our father a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: and don't realize how much we're repeating history.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's because of the story you've been
Speaker 3: told growing up?
Speaker 1: I think so, yeah, And I think, like him being
Speaker 1: such a big figure in my life, I just looked
Speaker 1: up to him and still look up to him so much,
Speaker 1: and I think that, you know, he was my inspiration
Speaker 1: for making music and getting into music, and he was
Speaker 1: also my guide when it came to who not to
Speaker 1: trust and when to trust in terms of the industry
Speaker 1: and like preserving myself. And you know, he's never tried
Speaker 1: to vicariously live through me. You know, he's always been
Speaker 1: someone who does his own thing really fucking well, and
Speaker 1: I do my own thing. And we talk about each
Speaker 1: other's music and we you know, he sends me stuff
Speaker 1: he's doing us and him stuff I'm doing, and it's lovely.
Speaker 1: But like, you know, one of my biggest songs was
Speaker 1: his song The Wilhelm Scream. He wrote it oh, so
Speaker 1: he was. Yeah, he wrote a song called Where to Turn,
Speaker 1: which was one of my favorite songs growing up, and
Speaker 1: I basically covered it. I interpolated, I took like one
Speaker 1: of the lyrics from it and kind of repeated them,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I guess the song is about you know,
Speaker 1: there's lyrics in it that are sad, and there are
Speaker 1: lyrics in it that are and reflective. You know, for example,
Speaker 1: the we speak less than i'd like. I don't know
Speaker 1: how I grew away from the vine. You know, lots
Speaker 1: of kind of things that I'd love him to in
Speaker 1: a way harder to say in person than they are
Speaker 1: in a song. In some ways. You know, we talked
Speaker 1: so much about our lives, respectively, and so he knows
Speaker 1: everything that he knows what I feel, and I know
Speaker 1: what he feels, and it's great and I and that's
Speaker 1: why I felt safe to write a song like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you thought about if you would want to
Speaker 3: be a father?
Speaker 1: I have thought about it, but I honestly don't think
Speaker 1: I will, because if I'm going to give up sixty
Speaker 1: percent or seventy percent of my life, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: which sixty or seventy percent is going to be and
Speaker 1: I'm so involved in my music and my friendships and
Speaker 1: my relationship that something's going to have to give. And
Speaker 1: I think in a lot cases people often feel pressured
Speaker 1: into giving up some or all of those, yeah, in
Speaker 1: order to have a child. And I just don't know
Speaker 1: if I I think it would make me resent them.
Speaker 3: That feels like a very mature decision, and a decision
Speaker 3: that comes from a place of really knowing yourself.
Speaker 1: I guess I've also not heard a single positive thing
Speaker 1: from any parent that I know about having children, really
Speaker 1: not really. I mean I've heard some, you know, things
Speaker 1: that seem like consolations, but nothing that made me go, oh,
Speaker 1: that sounds great.
Speaker 3: What about talking to your own parents about now that
Speaker 3: obviously their child is grown. Yeah, well, if I have
Speaker 3: some positive things to say, yeah.
Speaker 1: They do. But also our relationship is not necessarily my
Speaker 1: relationship with my child, you know. And so even if
Speaker 1: it's you know, I had a loving, loving parents who,
Speaker 1: like every parent, makes mistakes and you have to heal
Speaker 1: them and then you and then hopefully at a certain
Speaker 1: age you become mates, you know. But like I'm someone
Speaker 1: who sort of has hyper focus. My dad does too,
Speaker 1: and I think that my version of hyper focus doesn't
Speaker 1: really allow for much more than like a committed relationship
Speaker 1: and friends to be outside of it. Like I find
Speaker 1: it hard enough to have dogs, honestly, Like I worry
Speaker 1: sometimes that I'm not being enough for giving them enough
Speaker 1: of my time, and I try, and I have a
Speaker 1: great relationship with my dogs. But I just if that's
Speaker 1: how hard that is, then I can't even imagine what
Speaker 1: it's like having kids. And I, yeah, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: realistic about that. And I also would kind of consider
Speaker 1: myself a spiritual person now. And I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent sure that our biological family is
Speaker 1: our only family, you know, and in fact, if our
Speaker 1: biological family is our family, you know, like so many
Speaker 1: people have a chosen family and the idea of legacy
Speaker 1: of you know, continuing the bloodline and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: I just don't really resonate too much with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like the same way I don't really resonate with, like
Speaker 1: hugely with nationality. And I'm not sure if I resonate
Speaker 1: necessarily with children that much either, Like whenever I meet kids,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is fun for like a while,
Speaker 1: but I'm never like, oh, that's made me really want
Speaker 1: to have children now, Like I just right, it feels
Speaker 1: like a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because it seems
Speaker 3: like you've gotten You're talking about how your dad has
Speaker 3: been a role model and he's sort of taught you
Speaker 3: so much about the world that you're in, about your
Speaker 3: artistic world, because that is such an important foundational relationship
Speaker 3: in your life that I don't know, there wouldn't be
Speaker 3: a desire to maybe guide somebody else in that way.
Speaker 3: But you can do that with chosen family as well.
Speaker 1: I do that all the time. I mean, like, I'm
Speaker 1: that kind of person to other people. Even in music.
Speaker 1: It's the role of a producer is a kind of
Speaker 1: sometimes can be like a mentor and an advice when
Speaker 1: you need it. And just like what I said about Rick,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, And the wonderful thing about doing it
Speaker 1: in that context is that I get to go home
Speaker 1: and just like leave the noise behind, because I'm somebody
Speaker 1: who really values peace. I really value it, and I
Speaker 1: would find I know myself enough to know that i'd
Speaker 1: find children pretty unbearable when it comes to like noise
Speaker 1: and kind of like unwanted distraction. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: just like it'd be so difficult for me.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, sensory overload.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just for me. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think if you want kids and it's just something
Speaker 1: you've always wanted, then then do you you know, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people who's like I could
Speaker 1: never bring a child into this world. It's like that's
Speaker 1: I feel like every generation's probably said something like that.
Speaker 1: Based on the Cold War, You've got like the fucking
Speaker 1: it's like, how many, how many terrible world endings, almost
Speaker 1: world ending situations have we've been through. It's like people
Speaker 1: still had kids, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna take one last quick break and then
Speaker 2: come back with more from Leo Rose and James Blake.
Speaker 2: Here's the rest of Lea Rose's conversation with James Blake.
Speaker 3: I was curious because I watched the entire interview you
Speaker 3: did with Theo Vaughn. It was such a great interview,
Speaker 3: two hours and forty four minutes. Yeah, and as someone
Speaker 3: who's been doing interviews for so long now you've been
Speaker 3: over ten years, you've been doing interviews, do you prefer
Speaker 3: that format where it's just loose and it's more of
Speaker 3: a conversation rather than a structured, straight ahead interview.
Speaker 1: I think I do. And I also like, you know,
Speaker 1: I quite like doing specialist things. I don't know, like
Speaker 1: I think my interest is too specific to do very
Speaker 1: general press. Yeah, I find it really dull and I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's like with THEO and then some of
Speaker 1: the other things I've done, to think that the kind
Speaker 1: of format is allows me to be actually myself. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I think myself is too jagged or something or
Speaker 1: like not not quite not quite suited to a lot
Speaker 1: of mainstream press. And maybe it's just an insecurity of
Speaker 1: mine that I won't be I won't come across well,
Speaker 1: but I just don't always feel comfortable. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: like to just feel safe in the interview, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what Theo's great at, you know, like not
Speaker 1: only is he one of my longtime friends, but he's
Speaker 1: also just a safe space. You know, he gives you, well,
Speaker 1: for a start, he's always going to be the more
Speaker 1: edgy one out of the two of you, regardless, so
Speaker 1: you can just rely on him to make you look
Speaker 1: pretty tame. And also he's hilarious and he's just he's
Speaker 1: one of those people who just advocates total honesty and
Speaker 1: like someone he's just really vulnerable with his audience, and
Speaker 1: I just think that's so great.
Speaker 3: It's just surprising. You guys are friends like people in
Speaker 3: the comments are like, I would have never expected this relationship, right,
Speaker 3: and you're so sweet and supportive with each other.
Speaker 1: Well, I just think he's I think he does something
Speaker 1: similar to me. I don't know, I've always felt like
Speaker 1: that when even the first time I saw him do comedy,
Speaker 1: I just thought, Oh, this is someone whose mind genuinely
Speaker 1: goes to the other the less trodden paths, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's the only way he can do it. I
Speaker 1: could see that there was a commonality where he was
Speaker 1: always looking for and I said this in the podcast,
Speaker 1: He's always looking for the way of saying something he
Speaker 1: hasn't said it before. Yeah, And that's to me, is
Speaker 1: just is just great. And there's not really that much
Speaker 1: difference in doing that with comedy as to doing it
Speaker 1: in music. It's pretty similar. I mean I don't have
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have loaded prese, you know, I
Speaker 1: sort of don't do things by template. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: get bored really easily. So I think it's well I
Speaker 1: think we're quite similar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard about other comedians talk about the connection
Speaker 3: or a similarity between comedians and musicians, like Dave Chappelle
Speaker 3: and Block Party said that all comedians want to be
Speaker 3: musicians and all musicians want to be comedians. And I
Speaker 3: don't think that's the most obvious connection.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's true, well to some extent. I
Speaker 1: think it's true. I mean it, you know, so, I
Speaker 1: don't actually want to be a comedian, and I'm never
Speaker 1: you know, you'll probably never see me try a stand up,
Speaker 1: but it's just a different part of your brain that
Speaker 1: you admire the art form, and you sort of between musicians.
Speaker 1: I find that the musicians who love other musicians the
Speaker 1: most are always ones that just don't know how it's done.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like it's a magic trick, really, and
Speaker 1: you're looking to figure things out. And if you're a
Speaker 1: producer or a musician, you really if you can just
Speaker 1: hear that it's done by numbers, then that's not interesting
Speaker 1: to a musician, right, Like a musician's musician is someone
Speaker 1: who no one can really work out how they do it.
Speaker 1: And that's the same in comedy. You know, it's like THEO.
Speaker 1: No one really understands Theo's brain. I think I have
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea of it, and then he'll say
Speaker 1: something that takes me by surprise, and I just that's
Speaker 1: why it's fascinating. That's why it's fascinating, that's why it's engaging,
Speaker 1: and that's why it's always it's always fun. I feel
Speaker 1: the same way about my girlfriend Jamila's brain works, her
Speaker 1: comedic brain works in a way that like I can't
Speaker 1: fully understand, like even knowing her for eight years, Like
Speaker 1: she just makes me laugh all the time, every day
Speaker 1: in ways that surprise me every time. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: and she says I do for her too, And I
Speaker 1: think it's funny. And there's nothing less funny than describing humor.
Speaker 1: But that's what it is. That's the thing with the THEO,
Speaker 1: and it's the thing I enjoy. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the thing that musicians with comedians, they just we just
Speaker 1: don't know how they're doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And speaking of musicians musicians, I know a lot
Speaker 3: of people talk about Joni Mitchell that way that they
Speaker 3: can't figure out how she does what she does, how
Speaker 3: she plays guitar, or how she you know, the lyrics
Speaker 3: she comes up with. Yeah, has there been anybody that
Speaker 3: you've collaborated with other musicians where you work with them
Speaker 3: and you just get that feeling.
Speaker 1: Connin Moccasin, I think Connin Moccasin I have that with
Speaker 1: I mean, yay, Yeah. There's a handful of people who
Speaker 1: are one of ones, you know, who it's very very
Speaker 1: difficult to pinpoint where an ideas come from or how
Speaker 1: it's how it's a arrived on the page, and people
Speaker 1: who have a certain kind of magic that can't be replicated.
Speaker 1: I think that's the You know, there are lots of
Speaker 1: different types of people who work in music, and you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of like writers and producers, there's a scale
Speaker 1: between people who are kind of have kind of studied
Speaker 1: what's happening and now and now are just adding to
Speaker 1: the adding to the ovary, you know, adding to the
Speaker 1: kind of the hubbub basically, and then on the other
Speaker 1: end of the scale you have people who are like
Speaker 1: musical compost as Brian Ino described it to me, who
Speaker 1: who are there to catalyze music and who don't necessarily
Speaker 1: always reach their levels of fame that some of the
Speaker 1: people in the middle do, but they provide ideas for
Speaker 1: the rest of music to bounce off. And that can
Speaker 1: be like a beautiful and a frustrating place to be
Speaker 1: for a lot of artists. And I've seen kind of
Speaker 1: a range of artists now as a producer, like having
Speaker 1: worked with a lot of people, I think I've just
Speaker 1: you know, accepted my place and whatever spectrum that, you know,
Speaker 1: wherever I am on that spectrum, I think I've accepted it.
Speaker 1: But I think that's something that all of us have
Speaker 1: to come to terms with, whether we are genuine, genuine
Speaker 1: idea new idea creators, or if we're people who work
Speaker 1: best as facilitating those ideas.
Speaker 3: You know, seems like it could be difficult if you
Speaker 3: want to be someone who's bringing new ideas to the
Speaker 3: table but instead really your best at just facilitating. That
Speaker 3: could be sort of a conflict.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd hate that. That's not a great place to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, wanting to be something you're not
Speaker 1: is fundamentally a cause.
Speaker 3: Of suffering, you know, and being a facilitator isn't as
Speaker 3: sexy as moving a genre forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But you know, it's like there are people who
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have the skill in new idea creation or
Speaker 1: like you know, might not have that magic, but they
Speaker 1: do have an incredible focus, pulling kind of magnetizing charisma,
Speaker 1: which might be something else. And I think like in
Speaker 1: pop especially, you have like a it takes a whole
Speaker 1: village really.
Speaker 3: So, And I have to ask you about working with
Speaker 3: Andre three thousand sounds like you made a lot of
Speaker 3: music that hasn't been released yet. Yeah, And is that
Speaker 3: it's just sort of in flux. Is there any way
Speaker 3: that we'll ever be able to hear anything?
Speaker 1: I hope so. But I mean, wasn't he on this
Speaker 1: podcast when he said that he wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to be releasing any more music. That's
Speaker 1: actually how I found out.
Speaker 3: Okay, what's the catch? The song that you did with them,
Speaker 3: it's the catch for your album is just phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Thank you. There's a crazy honor to get him, get
Speaker 1: him on that song.
Speaker 3: Were you all together in the studio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did months, but on that specific
Speaker 1: song is yeah, a couple of nights. But yeah, my god,
Speaker 1: you're you're dealing with a living icon. Who Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: almost surprising to hear something new come from that person
Speaker 1: because you're so used to the songs that exist, You're
Speaker 1: like almost it seems impossible that they could just be created.
Speaker 1: It feels like they were just divinely just put somewhere
Speaker 1: and they were just almost like you found them, like
Speaker 1: you know, like precious metals or something, and you know,
Speaker 1: in this case with Andre, Yeah, I just just had
Speaker 1: to pinch myself a little bit and remind myself it
Speaker 1: was really happening. So yeah, I'm honestly so blessed. Like
Speaker 1: I've had some of the most unbeliev musical experiences and
Speaker 1: personal experiences in this career. Like I just I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see what's next.
Speaker 3: Really, So see your dad as a musician and how
Speaker 3: he's maybe changed or his focus has changed as he's
Speaker 3: gotten older. Have you thought about your own trajectory as
Speaker 3: a musician as you get into your forties and fifties.
Speaker 3: Have you thought about how your focus might change?
Speaker 1: God, I just just only struck me that I'm going
Speaker 1: to enter my forties at some point in I mean,
Speaker 1: to be fair, I'm thirty four, so it's a bit
Speaker 1: of a way off. But I've worked with some artists
Speaker 1: who've defied age expectation, and they've defied not only defied
Speaker 1: the expectation of age. But they've they've proven that that
Speaker 1: if you have it, if you have something that is
Speaker 1: that has to be shared, you can share it forever,
Speaker 1: and you can share it in different ways forever. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like these people who see people just it's like
Speaker 1: they never seem to leave relevance and we don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like, how is you know, how is Drake still
Speaker 1: making hits? And I'm not he's not even old, but
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like, yeah, he's like two
Speaker 1: years older than me, I think three years old of me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like the run is never ending. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like this this person has just been on top.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we haven't even really worked together,
Speaker 1: but like how long has it been?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: One after another after another after another, and it's like
Speaker 1: it never stops. Well I mean that's literally a Drake lyric.
Speaker 1: It never stops. But it's crazy and it maybe he's
Speaker 1: not maybe the best example of the age thing, but
Speaker 1: like I'm sure he's I'm sure he will be one day.
Speaker 1: And then when you look at like jay Z and
Speaker 1: like he just pops up on stuff and it's like
Speaker 1: what you did that verse he did on that that
Speaker 1: DJ caller Jene insane verse and something that a twenty
Speaker 1: five year old couldn't do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not even NAS just comes back around credible run
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like NAS having what another moment, like another what
Speaker 1: he's okay? So like having another mainstream relevant moment. It's
Speaker 1: like how it's like people have weave. They come in
Speaker 1: waves rather than that. I always thought that my career
Speaker 1: would be over by the time I was thirty. I
Speaker 1: was like, right, I've got this this amount of years
Speaker 1: to do this, and then and then it's and then
Speaker 1: the basically my relevance is over. So I'm just going
Speaker 1: to like just enjoy it and then I'm going to
Speaker 1: go do something else. But for some reason, as long
Speaker 1: as I take care of myself, it's been shown to
Speaker 1: me that I never really have to stop doing what
Speaker 1: I do, and that I can just keep kind of
Speaker 1: coming in and out and going in waves of not
Speaker 1: just it's not really about relevance. It's more to do
Speaker 1: with waves of like being in tune and doing your
Speaker 1: best work. I mean, there'll be people who listen to
Speaker 1: this record now and say, oh, glad, he's finally getting
Speaker 1: back to what he does best right, and this will
Speaker 1: be a moment for them of like, oh, he finally
Speaker 1: did it again. And there'll be people who just don't
Speaker 1: get it at all, and that's that's fine.
Speaker 3: But it's like, but they can just wait for the
Speaker 3: next one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, it's it's just you know, that's the point
Speaker 1: of being.
Speaker 3: Like, you're always going to have a continuous stream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not going to stop. Well, no, it hasn't
Speaker 1: so far. I mean, it stopped when I got very depressed.
Speaker 1: But I guess I sorted that out and here we are.
Speaker 3: Was that before the Rick album?
Speaker 1: No, that was during Color and Anything, but but but
Speaker 1: it meant Color and Anything took so long to make
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just three months with Rick. It
Speaker 1: was it was years between Overgrown and that and then
Speaker 1: and then the time after that to assume format. It
Speaker 1: was quite a long, long period of time, and I
Speaker 1: really took a big detour in terms of my kind
Speaker 1: of what a lot of people thought my trajectory was
Speaker 1: going to be. And I think what is to say
Speaker 1: is to say that, like every artist, as long as
Speaker 1: you are doing what you love, you can do it forever.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're really serious about it and maybe
Speaker 1: money isn't the primary concern. And I think that was
Speaker 1: a surprise to me to learn from some of the
Speaker 1: people I work with that that, Like, you know, my
Speaker 1: friend Eric the architect telling me that George Clinton, He's
Speaker 1: got George Clinton on his album. They just keep coming
Speaker 1: back around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I see that with you. I feel like,
Speaker 3: why would it start?
Speaker 1: Well, I've never seen it that way. I couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: say that for myself, but what I could say is
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep trying, and I do. And it
Speaker 1: gave me some hope that the other some of the
Speaker 1: people that I love the most are still killing it
Speaker 1: and still doing air thing popping up. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to end at thirty.
Speaker 3: Basically, Yeah, thank you so much for doing this. I
Speaker 3: appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1: And man me too, Leah, thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, and congratulations on the album. I can't wait
Speaker 3: for people to hear it.
Speaker 1: Thanks me too. Jas.
Speaker 2: Thanks to James Blake for chatting about making his new
Speaker 2: album Playing Robots and Dead. You can hear all of
Speaker 2: our favorite tracks from him, as well as songs featuring
Speaker 2: James Blake on a playlist at Broken record podcast dot com.
Speaker 2: You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot
Speaker 2: com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find all
Speaker 2: of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter
Speaker 2: at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help from
Speaker 2: Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Ben Holliday, and Eric Sandler. Our
Speaker 2: editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is a production of
Speaker 2: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and to others
Speaker 2: from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is
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Speaker 2: on your podcast app. Musics by Canny Beats.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richemond mm hmm