Speaker 1: Pushkin. In the thirteen years since Kevin Parker first posted
Speaker 1: Tam and Paula music on MySpace, he's gone from being
Speaker 1: a member of Perth, Australia's psych rock scene to a
Speaker 1: huge Coachella headlining act in the States. In the process,
Speaker 1: he's developed the best of both worlds, the respect of
Speaker 1: all your favorite artists and legions of fans who'd dissect
Speaker 1: every lyric and sound on his albums. Like most of
Speaker 1: his past releases, Kevin did everything on the newest Tam
Speaker 1: and Paula album, The Slow Rush, himself, all the singing, playing, production, mixing. Everything,
Speaker 1: he tells Krubin is how he's most comfortable creating alone.
Speaker 1: But in the five years between his last record and
Speaker 1: the new one, he was busy collaborating with The Weekend,
Speaker 1: Travis Scott, Kanye West, Sizza and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: people have talked about wanting to work with him too,
Speaker 1: everyone from Dua Lipa at Christina and the Queens. Kevin
Speaker 1: connected recently with Rick on Zoom. It's been sheltern in
Speaker 1: place back in Australia ever since the coronavirus interrupted his
Speaker 1: tour after two sold out nights at the Forum in La.
Speaker 1: He talks with Rick about how being perceived as a
Speaker 1: band started eating away at him early, and also asked
Speaker 1: Rick about making two albums. He loves Californication in Jesus.
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin and Kevin Parker, and
Speaker 1: you might hear Rooster's crown in the background every once
Speaker 1: in a while. Unfortunately, sheltern in place sometimes means being
Speaker 1: surrounded by wild chickens. What was your introduction to music?
Speaker 1: What's what are your first memories of listening to music
Speaker 1: as a kid. My dad was kind of a musician
Speaker 1: by hobby, like like, loved music, loved playing music and
Speaker 1: playing like a cover band, just playing kind of sixties
Speaker 1: you know, Beach Boys, Badels, roll Stones, covers, and so
Speaker 1: he would always have a sort of guitars and stuff
Speaker 1: lying on the house and in the end in the garage.
Speaker 1: I guess of your dad's music was the first Your
Speaker 1: first memory of was of him playing music or of
Speaker 1: the music he listened to the music listened to it
Speaker 1: because he would he would always have music playing in
Speaker 1: the car. In fact, it's weird because there's this one
Speaker 1: song that that I have this memory of always asking
Speaker 1: him to play, and I remember there was every time
Speaker 1: I heard it was like, you know, I must have
Speaker 1: been about four years old I was. I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: play this song. And to this day, I don't know
Speaker 1: what that song is. It's heartbreak. Does your dad still remember?
Speaker 1: He passed away about ten years ago, so um so yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think he would have remembered anyway, though,
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, I have a feeling it's The Shadows,
Speaker 1: a song by the Shadows. Do you feel like if
Speaker 1: you randomly came across the song in life, it would
Speaker 1: a light bulb would go off and you would say
Speaker 1: it is It would probably trigger some sort of weird episode,
Speaker 1: you know, like wherever I was, and probably you know,
Speaker 1: just sort of stop breakdown in some way. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I think it might be a song
Speaker 1: that I know at the moment by the Shadows, because
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it was instrumental, and I know
Speaker 1: that it was really like touching and melancholic, which which
Speaker 1: kind of points directly to the Shadows. And then what
Speaker 1: was your first music that was yours? Probably Navana? You know,
Speaker 1: like I just I would have been about eleven years old.
Speaker 1: My friend played me vinyl because we were like the
Speaker 1: first kids in our class to get into music. You know,
Speaker 1: like I go on his house every Tuesday or something
Speaker 1: like that after school and we'd kind of like discover
Speaker 1: rock music. You know. It was kind of it was
Speaker 1: just like epiphany, absolute revolution of life, like just like
Speaker 1: jumping around the room that you know that that that
Speaker 1: whole that whole kind of discover that whole story, which
Speaker 1: is you know, probably everyone but yeah, I mean Nirvana.
Speaker 1: And then it was kind of just a cascade of
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins, silver Chair, anything with distorted guitar, anything with
Speaker 1: drop D tuning. But there was always the kind of
Speaker 1: part of that music that was kind of, um it
Speaker 1: wasn't just like angsty. It was kind of discovered the
Speaker 1: emotion in it, like like like Smashing Pumpkins. You know,
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins has that that real, that real kind of
Speaker 1: sensitivity to even though it's just like blaring wall of sound,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Do you remember when you
Speaker 1: first started started experimenting with making music. Uh, yeah, Well
Speaker 1: my brother played drums, so yeah, he's two years older. Um,
Speaker 1: so he had a drum kit which I just thought
Speaker 1: was incredible. I like, sort of, you know, just watch him,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was kind of like wow, so
Speaker 1: obviously I immediately wanted to copy him. Hea. We had
Speaker 1: this tape deck in the music room, which was kind
Speaker 1: of just a room in the house. We had a
Speaker 1: tape deck that had a microphone input. You remember those
Speaker 1: like kind of like cassette cassette decks, and for some
Speaker 1: reason they'd just be like a chorion's jack in the
Speaker 1: corner just says a microphone, you know, And so we
Speaker 1: plugged a microphone into it and just recorded ourselves playing drums,
Speaker 1: just to sort of sealed it sound like. And then
Speaker 1: we had this little keyboard sitting in the room as
Speaker 1: a little cassio kind of thing. And one day I
Speaker 1: was kind of just playing along to myself playing drums
Speaker 1: with the cat like I didn't even know how to plays,
Speaker 1: just hitting random notes, you know. It sound like a
Speaker 1: nursery rhyme probably, And then I noticed in the room
Speaker 1: there was a second cassette deck with the same thing.
Speaker 1: So I stuck a mic into that, stuck the mic in,
Speaker 1: did that and recorded myself just hitting these keys over
Speaker 1: the top of me. You're playing drums and listened back
Speaker 1: to that tape and it was me playing keyboard to myself.
Speaker 1: It was me playing two things at once. It blew
Speaker 1: my still would have been about eleven amazing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: who did the idea of starting to do it with
Speaker 1: the ideas of making it for other people to hear? Start? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, like like every young teenage musician, I had
Speaker 1: like grandiose dreams of being a rock star, especially because
Speaker 1: my favorite band was Silver Chair and they were only
Speaker 1: like fifteen sixteen and I was sort of like twelve
Speaker 1: thirteen by that point. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: they're fucking like fifteen sixteen. That means I've got like
Speaker 1: two three years, Like two three years I can I
Speaker 1: can still get to where they're they are. I can
Speaker 1: be them. You know, you think it had to do
Speaker 1: with how young they were, because because they were such
Speaker 1: little kids. Yeah, for whatever reason, whether it was because
Speaker 1: I do you know, because they were like young Australian boys,
Speaker 1: or because like they're kind of they would have been
Speaker 1: a similar headspace, you know that they kind of like
Speaker 1: their approach to it would have been in the same
Speaker 1: realm as mine. How did you decide to end up
Speaker 1: being a solo artist as opposed to being in a band.
Speaker 1: Uh well, I always I played in bands the whole
Speaker 1: time in high school, Like I was obsessed with the
Speaker 1: idea of playing in bands, but I also had the
Speaker 1: making music thing at home since before I accidentally multi
Speaker 1: tracked myself. That time I was playing at a band.
Speaker 1: It was kind of this um this music school that
Speaker 1: I went to where like they teach you an instrument,
Speaker 1: mom's drums, and then every Saturday morning they get all
Speaker 1: the kids from different instrument like tuitions and put them
Speaker 1: and put them in bands. So they put me in
Speaker 1: the in a band. So I was in a band
Speaker 1: that age eleven, which I fucking loved. I could not wait.
Speaker 1: I could not wait for Saturday morning to come around
Speaker 1: because it was like, you know, playing music with other
Speaker 1: kids was just this another mind blowing thing. But I
Speaker 1: also and then so I sort of got better at that,
Speaker 1: and I slowly got better at recording music by myself,
Speaker 1: and the two worlds never really met, Like even even
Speaker 1: at the start of like Tamian Parlor, when I was
Speaker 1: sort of like twenty one twenty two, we were playing
Speaker 1: songs that I'd written for us to play live and
Speaker 1: they were different to the ones I was recording at home,
Speaker 1: we even had on MySpace. It took a while for
Speaker 1: the two worlds to kind of converge, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1: because I just didn't know how. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to translate what I was kind of doing at home
Speaker 1: and like expressing on my own because that music was
Speaker 1: like super kind of I guess, I guess sensitive is
Speaker 1: the word, and kind of nuanced and genre less. But
Speaker 1: the music I was making in bands, I mean, like
Speaker 1: that was music was more kind of like what we
Speaker 1: had listened to was a group like kind of more angsty,
Speaker 1: like heavy kind of stuff. At the time that you
Speaker 1: started making music with the idea of putting it up
Speaker 1: on my space, what would you say the influences were
Speaker 1: what we listening to and what might might have been
Speaker 1: who would you hope to get to play with? For example,
Speaker 1: that was around the time that I was super kind
Speaker 1: of obsessed with sixties music, so it was kind of
Speaker 1: it was all like the doors Jefferson Airplane. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of kind of like modern day idols
Speaker 1: um just because of like that was a kind of
Speaker 1: lifestyle I was leading, and like I was living in
Speaker 1: a sharehouse with other people were kind of just we
Speaker 1: were just permanently listened to seventies psycher rock constantly. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean there was this band called dungyin that I
Speaker 1: was super into it, still am to this day. That's
Speaker 1: that's still just gives me goosebumps, you know. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: and like it's funny because I listened now and I
Speaker 1: can hear my first album all over it. You know,
Speaker 1: It's something I didn't really notice at the time consciously,
Speaker 1: but just like the Yeah, and then how do you
Speaker 1: describe how the second album differed from the first. It
Speaker 1: was it was a hundred times more indulgent, which is
Speaker 1: what I wanted, you know, because I'd had this kind
Speaker 1: of like surge of confidence that I didn't have previously prior,
Speaker 1: you know, like when I made in a Speakers is
Speaker 1: kind of like shy stoner kind of you know. And uh,
Speaker 1: and you know, like we had a lot of I
Speaker 1: had a lot of success the first album. We went
Speaker 1: on tours and all this kind of stuff, and so
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized that, um, it kind of validated my
Speaker 1: approach and my kind of like what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So I can't say Lonerism was kind of like just
Speaker 1: blowing that wide open. How did the third album when
Speaker 1: that came, how was that different? Well, I mean the
Speaker 1: second album, I still didn't fully know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I kind of like I got Ableton and I and
Speaker 1: instead of just sort of it being the corner of
Speaker 1: my bedroom in a share house that I made it
Speaker 1: for the second album, I was like, fuck it all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dedicate to this, you know, So I set
Speaker 1: up a studio in a in a in a room
Speaker 1: in my sharehouse. It got it's got, it's my studio,
Speaker 1: got its own full room for once, um, and I
Speaker 1: would just make hours and hours of I just I
Speaker 1: like was using SyncE Organs fucking anything, you know. I
Speaker 1: was kind of it was kind of just that, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of typical moment for a solo artists where
Speaker 1: they where they make their you know, their self indulgent opens.
Speaker 1: It really was that. Looking back, like at the time,
Speaker 1: I was like, fuck yeah, you know, it seemed like
Speaker 1: the first two albums, the arrangement seemed more complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably true because in the third one, I was
Speaker 1: kind of like influenced by a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: R and B and electronic music. So I was kind
Speaker 1: of embracing the way that that music was made more,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean, sort of like finding
Speaker 1: a loop and kind of like almost kind of making
Speaker 1: making a beat like a you know, in like the
Speaker 1: hip hop sense, like sort of just having like a
Speaker 1: four bar loop and just sort of making the structure
Speaker 1: out of that, rather than going like, Okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to be going with this bit for a while, We're
Speaker 1: gonna jam on these chords and then like do a
Speaker 1: huge drum fill and go into these chords and then
Speaker 1: let this thing for five and a half bars. Do
Speaker 1: you remember what the music that inspired that switch? Like
Speaker 1: what would have been the things you were listening to
Speaker 1: that maybe you want to make more program based music.
Speaker 1: I mean, like it was always music that I was into,
Speaker 1: but just music that I'd kind of shied away from
Speaker 1: making because I figured, like my world was weird, expansive
Speaker 1: side rock, and like if I tried to do more clean,
Speaker 1: focused pop kind of stuff, I assumed it wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: you know. So Currence was the album where I'd kind
Speaker 1: of like just went, I'm going to try it, you know,
Speaker 1: try to make kind of like disco R and B
Speaker 1: kind of like, really the beats are like super strong
Speaker 1: and heavy. Would you would you consider the first two
Speaker 1: as a pair and the last two was pair? No,
Speaker 1: I've never thought of it that way. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: maybe some people would, I guess with the third one.
Speaker 1: Third one where I was is the one where I
Speaker 1: was kind of like I knew that there would be
Speaker 1: fans of the first two that turn their noses up,
Speaker 1: Like I was ready for that, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? I was kind of like I decided, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of definitively that that. Um, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: change my sound, and I knew that some people wouldn't
Speaker 1: like it, you know what I mean. That was kind
Speaker 1: of that part of my career where where I kind
Speaker 1: of like sucked it up. Do you know what? It's
Speaker 1: a great thing to do, Earthly on If you'd made
Speaker 1: four albums that sounded in the same vain and then
Speaker 1: the fifth one was different, it would have probably alienated
Speaker 1: more people. Yeah, you know, It's like you did it
Speaker 1: early enough in the trajectory where you let people let
Speaker 1: the audience know that, hey, we're gonna go on different
Speaker 1: rides and I want you to come with me and
Speaker 1: I think people are more forgiving of the style changes
Speaker 1: if you prepare them for it. Yeah, yeah, if if
Speaker 1: if change is one of the constants. Yeah, It's like
Speaker 1: if if the Ramans fifth album, All of a Sudden
Speaker 1: was a you know, program dance record, I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody would have been excited about that, right. And also
Speaker 1: something I realized was that, I mean, what's funny is
Speaker 1: that the first album and the second one I like
Speaker 1: as well, Taiman Palla was always kind of perceived as
Speaker 1: a band, and I was kind of cool with that
Speaker 1: because like, because it's it sounded like a band, people
Speaker 1: will you know, it's it sounds like a bunch of
Speaker 1: guys jamming, you know, like I love this, I love
Speaker 1: I love these guys, you know, I love the way
Speaker 1: they jam out. Um. But I kind of like it.
Speaker 1: Kind of it was eating away at me that it
Speaker 1: wasn't like the truth. Um. And also because and also
Speaker 1: like I wanted I wanted people to know that it
Speaker 1: was kind of more of a solo recording project because
Speaker 1: I realized that solo artists get away with completely changing
Speaker 1: their sound a lot more than bands, do, you know,
Speaker 1: like with someone like like Beck, you know, Beck can
Speaker 1: just take a complete left turn with one album, you
Speaker 1: know um, and everyone'll be like, oh, well, that's that's back,
Speaker 1: that's what he does. But like with a band, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like I think, I feel like a few
Speaker 1: things have to happen, like everyone in the band or
Speaker 1: everyone in the group rather has to like decide on
Speaker 1: it together, which is more difficult. You know. They all
Speaker 1: have to be sort of like moving in the same action,
Speaker 1: whereas people, you know, people, especially as time goes by,
Speaker 1: people like Drift Apart. When he decided to give the
Speaker 1: project a name originally as opposed to your name was
Speaker 1: it was it the opposite of what you just said
Speaker 1: was the original impression was for it to seem like
Speaker 1: a band. Yes. Absolutely. In fact, the record label when
Speaker 1: they signed us didn't even know we were it didn't
Speaker 1: it didn't know it was me that was playing drums
Speaker 1: and guitars and bass and multi jacking like they we
Speaker 1: I outright lied to them when we met up, Like
Speaker 1: the contract that we signed was for three of us. Um.
Speaker 1: I think yeah, because I just I didn't want to
Speaker 1: say it was just me, you know, um for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons, Like number one, I was kind of shy.
Speaker 1: I just you know, it's really weird because looking back,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, why the fuck didn't you just
Speaker 1: like own it? You know. Um. But also, like the
Speaker 1: kind of music scene I was in was a very
Speaker 1: communal scene, you know, like we lived to jam and
Speaker 1: lived to like play gigs. So like for the thing
Speaker 1: that finally came out of that scene to be just
Speaker 1: one like a solo project, think it felt kind of wrong,
Speaker 1: like they'd be it would be the kind of this
Speaker 1: like scene that we kind of had going in Perth
Speaker 1: was kind of like a bunch of us, but there
Speaker 1: weren't that many people. But that what we made tons
Speaker 1: of bands out of it, you know, so they'd be
Speaker 1: like ten people and they'd be like six bands with
Speaker 1: like different combinations of those people, just just because you know, like, hey,
Speaker 1: why the fuck, why the funk not when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll have more with Kevin Parker. We're back with Rick
Speaker 1: and Kevin Parker. It feels like it was like four
Speaker 1: or five years between the third album and the new
Speaker 1: album M and that before yous you didn't you didn't
Speaker 1: write songs or make any music. I did. I absolutely did,
Speaker 1: but I just didn't see it as taim and Parlor,
Speaker 1: And it kind of seemed more like a drag to
Speaker 1: think of a song as Tame and Parlor, because it like,
Speaker 1: every time I thought of a song, if I imagine
Speaker 1: it as taim and Parlor, it came loaded, like the
Speaker 1: idea was loaded with all these kind of things that
Speaker 1: came with it, Like it just seemed so much more
Speaker 1: magical and wondrous to think of it as a song
Speaker 1: I could collaborate with a different artist on, you know,
Speaker 1: like me making taim and Parlor music now, h and
Speaker 1: always it's like it's a deep dark hole that I
Speaker 1: have to go into and you know, like come out
Speaker 1: like it drains, it drains every bit of me, you know.
Speaker 1: And I realized that the end, like working at the
Speaker 1: end of the third album, you know, I've I've I
Speaker 1: always dreamt of making a tam and Parlor album where
Speaker 1: I didn't feel completely spent at the end of it,
Speaker 1: like completely drained and completely like depressed even And I
Speaker 1: kind of realized after a while that that was inevitable
Speaker 1: and that was the only way it could be. In
Speaker 1: the course of those four years before you started working
Speaker 1: on a new album, did it reveal itself that it
Speaker 1: was time or was it the decision you made, or
Speaker 1: did one particular track come up where you felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: this could be the beginning of something. It was a
Speaker 1: combination of the first two, you know what it was.
Speaker 1: It was more like it was the process of it,
Speaker 1: because I'd fallen in love so much with this idea
Speaker 1: of music being a collaborative thing, you know, like the
Speaker 1: energy in a room when you're working with other people,
Speaker 1: like you know, I started working with Travis Scott someone
Speaker 1: like that, Like the energy in the room is just
Speaker 1: so electric, you know, and I was like, hey, I
Speaker 1: can I can have that energy on my own too.
Speaker 1: I just have to. I just have to embrace it,
Speaker 1: you know. And so then I started so like the
Speaker 1: way I started working on the album again was by
Speaker 1: like pretending I was in a recording session with a
Speaker 1: bunch of other people, you know, staying up late, just
Speaker 1: getting getting drunk and stoned, you know, and kind of
Speaker 1: just having a party by myself. I guess, just embracing
Speaker 1: that kind of way that when you're on the in
Speaker 1: the depths of working by yourself, you feel like many people.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're channeling particular people or is
Speaker 1: it more of a general feeling of this is not me,
Speaker 1: it's someone else, or do you envision or Travis is
Speaker 1: here with me? What would you do? Both? But in
Speaker 1: different times it's like me imagining I'm someone else is
Speaker 1: kind of more when I get stuck, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like what would or would Forrell Williams do in this moment?
Speaker 1: You know. Actually it's funny. One of the one of
Speaker 1: the things that got me inspired I was what I
Speaker 1: started for some reason. I started watching um there's this
Speaker 1: like six part YouTube video series on the making of Justified,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it almost seems like leaked footage because
Speaker 1: it's just fly on the wall. Someone's just holding a
Speaker 1: video camera the entire time. It starts from like them
Speaker 1: in the in Justin Timberlake's private jet and they're flying
Speaker 1: to the recording session. But most of it is just
Speaker 1: someone sitting on the couch like filming Farrell and Justin
Speaker 1: kind of messing around, like having a laugh and like
Speaker 1: making the song. So you can see Farrell kind of
Speaker 1: piece together um uh Senorita. So like there's like, you know,
Speaker 1: like a twenty minute patch of him just sort of
Speaker 1: playing drums just so good. That's what it's that's not
Speaker 1: how it starts out, but he slowly, it seems slowly
Speaker 1: converge on the beat that ends up being signorated, you know,
Speaker 1: so he's like, Okay, gets up, He's like, hey, leap
Speaker 1: that back. And I don't know why, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: that kind of just made me think about how I
Speaker 1: make music, and it kind of reminded me. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the songs on the album kind of like
Speaker 1: came out sounding similar to something I would imagine Forrell
Speaker 1: and Justin would be doing for Justin Team, which is
Speaker 1: the song breath Deeper. The first the beat from the
Speaker 1: start of Breath Deeper was kind of me pretending us, no,
Speaker 1: it's Farrell and Justin making Justified. Let me ask a
Speaker 1: specific question. You often have a little intro signature intros
Speaker 1: that are not necessarily part of the track, you know,
Speaker 1: like the drums. It will either be a different beat
Speaker 1: or it sounds really different and it sets up the song,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel like it's part of the song.
Speaker 1: Did those happen after? I guess that's just me trying
Speaker 1: to um just create those kind of moments of like
Speaker 1: jelting into the track, you know, like in the way
Speaker 1: that you here and hip hop. The way that like
Speaker 1: like just cutting to something completely different is because sometimes
Speaker 1: one of the most satisfying things and so sometimes it
Speaker 1: give me an accident, like accidentally accidentally played the track wrong.
Speaker 1: For example, the start of backwards feels like we're going
Speaker 1: to go backwards on Learnerism was me I had it
Speaker 1: on loop. I had one beat on loop that's kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, the last beat of the chorus
Speaker 1: or something, you know, I had any and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, you know, that's one of like I don't
Speaker 1: have many happy accidents in this year, I've most Not true,
Speaker 1: I do, I have a lot, but um, that's one
Speaker 1: just one of those happy accidents, you know. So I
Speaker 1: guess I'm just always look out for things that can
Speaker 1: consider like take you one way and then quickly back
Speaker 1: the other, you know what I mean. And so more
Speaker 1: more often, some accident might happen somewhere during the course
Speaker 1: of making the song, and you might think, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: I can use this piece at some point and then
Speaker 1: you and then you figure out how to use it,
Speaker 1: or or might you have a finished song and think, okay,
Speaker 1: now I want to I need an intro and I
Speaker 1: don't want it to be like the rest. I mean,
Speaker 1: those kind of things, those kind of moments, those accidents,
Speaker 1: they're almost it's almost something that I rely on happening,
Speaker 1: you know, And because like you know, I i'd like
Speaker 1: to recordpreate late at night. Sometimes I like to get
Speaker 1: kind of just spaced out, and you know, in those times,
Speaker 1: I'm not very musically proficient. You know, but because because
Speaker 1: you're not consciously aware of everything you're doing, it frees
Speaker 1: you from that the boring straight down the line cognitive
Speaker 1: thinking that you do. You know. It's that kind of
Speaker 1: so it's almost like your subconscious is involved in the
Speaker 1: rating process. Yeah, exactly exactly. I mean I try I
Speaker 1: try to bring that as much as possible because I'm
Speaker 1: someone that naturally I'll try and process everything. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm probably more um uh naturally an overthinker than i'd
Speaker 1: like to be, you know, So like smoking weed in
Speaker 1: a recording session, that's kind of just something I do
Speaker 1: to stop myself from overthinking, because that's that's that's that's
Speaker 1: a time when I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's cool,
Speaker 1: let's go with that, you know, like, oh that's sick.
Speaker 1: Don't think about it, don't think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: not that not the nothing you need to be done
Speaker 1: to to like to get into that kind of space,
Speaker 1: but all those kind of times. It's it's also like
Speaker 1: like being being in a heightened emotional state, like being
Speaker 1: super feeling super emotional in whichever direction is also something
Speaker 1: that brings out that where you're not you're not thinking
Speaker 1: about whether something's good, it's just it just it hits
Speaker 1: a spot of you because you're feeling depressed, or because
Speaker 1: you're feeling elated, or or you know, particularly joyous or
Speaker 1: particularly sad. Those are times when you don't overthink things too.
Speaker 1: Are all of these things we're talking about all instrumental
Speaker 1: at this point where we're at in talking about making
Speaker 1: music and those feelings that you get excited about. Are
Speaker 1: we only talking about instrumental at this point? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: it can happen all at once. I mean, in fact,
Speaker 1: like most of the ideas I have for songs, our
Speaker 1: ideas I've had not even in the studio. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of the other thing about catching you off guard
Speaker 1: is that songs come to me when I'm not thinking
Speaker 1: about writing a song. You know, in fact, if I
Speaker 1: consciously decide that I want to write a song I
Speaker 1: can you can pretty much guarantee it's going to be
Speaker 1: the shitter song I've ever written. I've often tried to research,
Speaker 1: like when it is that I that an idea will
Speaker 1: come to me, and like the only thing I can
Speaker 1: um that I've noticed, like a pattern or whatever, is
Speaker 1: like going from like a loud place or like a
Speaker 1: place where there's a lot of energy into us into it,
Speaker 1: just like like walking outside, stepping outside from a room
Speaker 1: of people, suddenly going from like lots of shit going on,
Speaker 1: thinking about it and then suddenly nothing, and then my
Speaker 1: brain has to find some way of feeling that void.
Speaker 1: Suddenly a beard. I think that's something that's as great
Speaker 1: and the fact that you notice that is really it's
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful note. And I'm really helpful for you
Speaker 1: that I'm so happy that you realized it. Sure, yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I think I'm a science person, so
Speaker 1: I'm always like, how how does that happen? Not not
Speaker 1: so that I can fabricate it or not that I
Speaker 1: can like force it to happen, but just just because
Speaker 1: I want to know you. I'm just curious, like what
Speaker 1: makes me think of ten songs in three days sometimes
Speaker 1: and then nothing for five months. Okay, So now let's
Speaker 1: say you just left the loud room where there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on. You stepped outside and it's silent. What
Speaker 1: might one of these seed ideas look like? What would
Speaker 1: be the first thing that would come. It's like flicking
Speaker 1: on the radio, melody, lyric, both both all all at
Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, it's like it's like it's it's
Speaker 1: like flicking on the radio, and it's like fee on
Speaker 1: the radio because it's not like it's not like starting
Speaker 1: the song at the Start's like a song starts, you know,
Speaker 1: zero point zero zero song starts. It's like coming in
Speaker 1: halfway through a chorus. You know, it's a vibe. You
Speaker 1: pick up on the vibe. Yeah, and then and then
Speaker 1: I just do my best. I do my best to
Speaker 1: get to a place where I can record it before
Speaker 1: I forget it. Um. So I've obviously got like a
Speaker 1: hundred voice members on my phone. It'll be like a
Speaker 1: two bar or one bar um bit of music. So
Speaker 1: the drums, all the drums. With the drums, I mean,
Speaker 1: let's let's try and find one um. But but it's
Speaker 1: it's rare that I'll listen back to it and decide
Speaker 1: that it was good enough. Just I don't know why.
Speaker 1: It's like someone singing on it hear is like, hey man,
Speaker 1: what about this? It goes no, no, no, no no, just
Speaker 1: and sometimes at the end of my note, I like
Speaker 1: feel compelled to go record this, Just fucking record it.
Speaker 1: This wouldn't sound like much you listen to it, but
Speaker 1: record it. Um play play one. I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1: This is very candid, you know, two doul. So that's
Speaker 1: obviously like the kind of the rhythm section that's a
Speaker 1: vocal melody. Um. Yeah. So I guess like often I'll
Speaker 1: go back and just like force myself to a call
Speaker 1: one of us. I haven't recorded that one. That's the
Speaker 1: first time I've listened to it. I'd say about ninety
Speaker 1: nine things out nine out of ten ideas that I
Speaker 1: have I'll forget because I'll be meaning to like record
Speaker 1: up my voice memo, but someone will be next. I'll
Speaker 1: be like talking to someone and then we'll get into
Speaker 1: a car with the car radio playing, and it'll absolutely
Speaker 1: just wipe. It'll wipe whatever I'm thinking. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: to catch him fast, absolutely and and and and easily
Speaker 1: forgotten too. And I always feel bad about going, just
Speaker 1: feel a bit kind of ego about ego maniac about going, Like, hey, guys, coone,
Speaker 1: just shut up, come one, shut up. Plays I've got
Speaker 1: an idea, you know, like I could never do that
Speaker 1: in a room full of pain or with anyone I'm with.
Speaker 1: Here's the suggestion, go to the bathroom. Yeah that's true.
Speaker 1: Hey there's music playing in bathroom sometimes, but yeah, but yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you know, Neil Young has rule that regardless of what
Speaker 1: is going on in the moment where he is or
Speaker 1: what he's doing, if a song comes to him, everything stops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it, And he gets that idea down before
Speaker 1: that goes away because he knows it's fleeting and we
Speaker 1: don't have control of them coming. Like you said, sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll get you might get a bunch in a couple
Speaker 1: of days, but then you might go months without without
Speaker 1: getting another one. So they really are valuable. And they're
Speaker 1: also valuable because they're all different and you never know
Speaker 1: which one is the great one, you know, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: one of the best ones evaporated. Yeah that's true. I
Speaker 1: I family believe I you know, I genuinely believe that
Speaker 1: I could have songs that are my best songs or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, Like, there's definitely things that have disappeared that
Speaker 1: that would have been great. But that's just life, you know. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you permission to always either ask
Speaker 1: people to be quiet or to wow, or to invite
Speaker 1: you to leave the where you are to go capture
Speaker 1: these ideas because there you're doing a service. You're doing
Speaker 1: a service to the world. Wow, that's that's actually really
Speaker 1: powerful to hear from you, Rick Rubin. Can I get
Speaker 1: a little soundbot from you saying like, hey, everyone, can
Speaker 1: you get the fuck out Kevin? He's to record something
Speaker 1: just so I can play it to them, Like it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I will make one for you and send it amazing.
Speaker 1: That would be amazing, Just like Hey, guys, Rick Rubin here,
Speaker 1: I love When we come back, we'll have more with
Speaker 1: Kevin Parker. We're back with Rick and Kevin Parker from
Speaker 1: Team and Parlor. Do you listen to music for a
Speaker 1: final While I don't and I want to more, I
Speaker 1: have less and less since I started making music, since
Speaker 1: music became the thing that I do, I've been more
Speaker 1: and more preoccupied with making it, so I haven't given
Speaker 1: myself time to listen to it. Like, it's extremely difficult
Speaker 1: for me to justify putting on an album to listen
Speaker 1: to over potentially thinking of a song, because for me,
Speaker 1: like if I put on an album, that's an hour
Speaker 1: that I won't have an idea, you know, I'm that
Speaker 1: obsessed with coming up with a new with like finding
Speaker 1: a new song, making a new song, because making a
Speaker 1: new song makes me feel like nothing else in the world.
Speaker 1: There's no other feeling in the world that I get
Speaker 1: from um the feeling of starting a new song that
Speaker 1: I think has great potential, sadly more so than than
Speaker 1: listening to something that that is equally that is that
Speaker 1: is great, you know. But but I do want to
Speaker 1: I do want to force myself to listen to me
Speaker 1: more music. I heard uh Um Todd of the Creator
Speaker 1: and his Nordwire interview the other day. He said, like
Speaker 1: he wakes up every morning listens to two hours of
Speaker 1: music hasn't heard before. I was like, Fuck, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I want to do that, you know, just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: have you ever started a song with another song in mine? Um,
Speaker 1: like a song that already exists, like a just like
Speaker 1: a song, like a song that you a song from
Speaker 1: the sixties. Anything, Wow, this is my inspiration. What would
Speaker 1: I do that that would be in this vein? Not
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting copying it, but I'm saying being inspired
Speaker 1: by it to want to make something that makes you
Speaker 1: feel like that feels uh, not that I know of,
Speaker 1: but um, something that I do sometimes kind of subconsciously.
Speaker 1: There might be a song um playing in the background,
Speaker 1: like you know, and like on the radio or something,
Speaker 1: and then I'll and then like they'll get switched off,
Speaker 1: and then I'll think of something that goes on from there,
Speaker 1: like like I'll have the rhythm and maybe the key
Speaker 1: in my mind is subconsciously I'll just start singing a
Speaker 1: song that goes on from that as though as though
Speaker 1: the song kept going but it changed. There's an example
Speaker 1: of that which I don't know if I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get busted. M Well, you know what fuck
Speaker 1: it it was? It was twenty and twelve. No, there's
Speaker 1: a song. Well, my song feels like we only go backwards. Um.
Speaker 1: I must have been listening to this, why I've traced
Speaker 1: it back. I think I was listening to this song
Speaker 1: by Beach House earlier that morning. It's called Walk in
Speaker 1: the Park, I think, And it's funny because it's the
Speaker 1: same tempo and the same key and possibly even similar chords.
Speaker 1: But it was for me at the time, it was
Speaker 1: kind of it was too much of a coincidence. And
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was around that time that song
Speaker 1: came out, So I'm pretty sure that I'd done that
Speaker 1: with that song, kind of like that song had stopped
Speaker 1: and then i'd kind of just like my brain had
Speaker 1: continued it on, same tempo and same key, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe even like there's probably even like a little motif
Speaker 1: in there that's the same kind of combo of two
Speaker 1: or three notes, do you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: that's something that happens. Yeah, I don't think there's anything.
Speaker 1: I think all great artists are heavily inspired by other artists,
Speaker 1: and it's only good. Yeah. What's funny is that when
Speaker 1: I say that now it doesn't seem that bad, But
Speaker 1: but I think back then, I used to be so
Speaker 1: precious about like the sacredity of melodies and the sacredness
Speaker 1: of artistry being being wholly wholly as like whe Dadada
Speaker 1: inspired and not influenced by anything. So like back then
Speaker 1: I would have thought that was terrible but now now
Speaker 1: that I said out loud, it's kind of that's just
Speaker 1: one of the ways that like great song can come about.
Speaker 1: And then especially like I discovered or not discovered, but
Speaker 1: like I appreciated hip hop more and like sampling and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So you know, that's that's another whole
Speaker 1: realm of taking music that already exists. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: creative use of a sample to create something new is
Speaker 1: it's just a new form. It's like it's a great
Speaker 1: new form of creativity, a beautiful way to express yourself,
Speaker 1: to flip something for a new use like recycling. It's
Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, it's also a completely other other category
Speaker 1: of skill that can be mastered. You know. I guess
Speaker 1: that's something I didn't realize early on when I started,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was like making to socker rocking style.
Speaker 1: Not that I have do you that I've sampled myself,
Speaker 1: but like I used to think, like someone's done that already,
Speaker 1: like how can you take credit for that? But finding
Speaker 1: that in itself and realizing how it can be reimagined
Speaker 1: and like represented is extremely difficult, especially when there's an
Speaker 1: there's a universe of music out there, Like finding the
Speaker 1: right thing to use and how to use it is
Speaker 1: something that I that I admire extremely Now, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it can happen even I mean even with cover songs.
Speaker 1: A different artist could take the same song with someone
Speaker 1: else did and just through their interpretation of it completely
Speaker 1: changed the meaning of the song. You know. It's there's
Speaker 1: so much that can happen in the personalization process of
Speaker 1: music fully fully, like that that Mad World song. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a cover. It's really that really a somber song, yes,
Speaker 1: and it's like, how could this song I've ever been
Speaker 1: anything else other than this? You know. Yes, the cover
Speaker 1: version is spectacular, and if you listen back to the original,
Speaker 1: it's cool, but the cover is is it? Yeah? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Great example, the first BG's hit was a song that
Speaker 1: they wrote for um Otis Redding. Do you know the story? No, No,
Speaker 1: I want to know. I love somebody? Oh okay, I
Speaker 1: love somebody. Yeah. They wrote that for Otis Redding and
Speaker 1: then Otis Redding died and never got to record it,
Speaker 1: and then they recorded it themselves and put it out.
Speaker 1: But when you hear that song, you don't think of
Speaker 1: Otis Redding and you think of the BGS. It's like
Speaker 1: it's a it's a classic BGS song. Yeah, a great
Speaker 1: example of a song with in their mind that was
Speaker 1: for someone else. Yeah. Yeah, I like hearing stars like that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of comforting for me to know that there's
Speaker 1: that kind of uncertainty that honest have as well with
Speaker 1: with where a song should end up. Anything else you
Speaker 1: want to talk about, Uh, well, you know, I'm tending
Speaker 1: to ask you about everything you've done, but I don't
Speaker 1: know that that's probably something done a million times. What
Speaker 1: was what was recording Californication? Like, just because that was
Speaker 1: one of the albums that like was big for me,
Speaker 1: that was kind of like my first year of high
Speaker 1: school album that I was kind of obsessed with. Well
Speaker 1: did typically the way it worked with the Chili Peppers
Speaker 1: as we would they would write songs on their own
Speaker 1: for a long period of time, and then we would
Speaker 1: get together in pre production and they would play me
Speaker 1: songs in various stages of completion, and we would talk
Speaker 1: about them and discuss strengths and weaknesses and how they
Speaker 1: could maybe be better and where they had too many
Speaker 1: parts or whether they had maybe mad enough parts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we would usually by the time of that
Speaker 1: album really work up the songs as a live band
Speaker 1: in the in the rehearsal room, so that when we
Speaker 1: went into the studio it was purely just getting the performance,
Speaker 1: like everything was worked out completely just with the players.
Speaker 1: Maybe not all of the words, but I think back
Speaker 1: then maybe many of the words were already written where
Speaker 1: they could perform it live and and the goal of
Speaker 1: that really was to to not confuse the writing process
Speaker 1: with the performance process, so that when we were in
Speaker 1: the studio we really knew what we were doing. And
Speaker 1: still we might play the same song a hundred times
Speaker 1: to get it to just come together in that in
Speaker 1: that way where it feels like it's the perfect version,
Speaker 1: but it's also got mistakes in it, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's natural. It's just it sounds like a band on
Speaker 1: a really good night. It doesn't sound like machines playing it.
Speaker 1: It sounds like the best night that they played that
Speaker 1: on tour. This was we happened to catch the best one,
Speaker 1: so to play things over and over with that idea,
Speaker 1: and someone happened very quickly, someone take a long time,
Speaker 1: and then and then all of the overdubs would happen
Speaker 1: after that, and we would make decisions of things to try,
Speaker 1: and we would usually record many, many, many more songs
Speaker 1: than whatever was on the album. Pretty much always the case. Wow,
Speaker 1: Like I would say for every album we made, there
Speaker 1: were at least twice as many songs as the songs
Speaker 1: that were on the album, and what happened to them
Speaker 1: eventually come out and based on kind of some have
Speaker 1: some happen. Wow, that's that's crazy because like for me,
Speaker 1: that's that's such a wild things to think because for me,
Speaker 1: like I just make the songs that I need for
Speaker 1: an album, Like a song will will not get pasted well,
Speaker 1: it won't get passed anywhere close to halfway finished unless
Speaker 1: I know it's going to be on the album. So
Speaker 1: I rarely ever have B sides of any kind. So
Speaker 1: the idea of to think of like a completely a
Speaker 1: complete other, like a parallel universe album that never existed.
Speaker 1: That's funny because it's sung on Californication. But um, but
Speaker 1: I guess I guess that's I guess that's how most artists.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed? Have you noticed how a song when
Speaker 1: you first get excited about it and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I've worked on these songs, but this this
Speaker 1: new one is my favorite of the batch so far,
Speaker 1: and then as you work further it maybe doesn't become
Speaker 1: your favorite of the batch. And then another song that
Speaker 1: you think, well, this is pretty good, but maybe not
Speaker 1: my favorite song, that as you continue working on it,
Speaker 1: it becomes your favorite song. Have you ever had that
Speaker 1: experience or now? Well, my thing is like for a
Speaker 1: song to make an album, it has to at some
Speaker 1: point have been my favorite song ever, Like I have
Speaker 1: to have had a moment with that song, Like it
Speaker 1: has to like for at least a day, has to
Speaker 1: have been just like my favorite thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1: You know, it can never be like just for some reason,
Speaker 1: like I won't bother going through with a song unless
Speaker 1: at some point I've thought that it's like potential is limitless,
Speaker 1: or it could be the greatest thing I've done, and
Speaker 1: like greatest, not just greatest, like oh it could you know,
Speaker 1: be the most critically claimed or whatever, but just just
Speaker 1: just the greatest, you know, Like I guess for me,
Speaker 1: the thing is like from starting a song and having
Speaker 1: all these and just thinking it's and having a moment
Speaker 1: with a um feeling great about it. It's kind of
Speaker 1: just like a race to the finish line to get
Speaker 1: the song finished and have me still feel the same
Speaker 1: way about it, or just for me to still love it.
Speaker 1: You know, you always finish one song before moving on
Speaker 1: to the next song. No, No, I mean like hours
Speaker 1: for the hours up until mastering. I'm still writing lyrics
Speaker 1: for a song for it, like up until you know,
Speaker 1: a few hours before it's done, of like a year
Speaker 1: of working on it. I'm sort of like writing lyrics,
Speaker 1: writing and recording lyrics and editing drums and you know,
Speaker 1: so I do everything at once because I'm my attention
Speaker 1: spand is too short to well my kind of like
Speaker 1: my work, I have horrible work ethics. So for me
Speaker 1: to sit down and do like one task until it's done,
Speaker 1: it's extremely rare. You know. I'll just I'll sort of
Speaker 1: like be recording a baseline for it and get sort
Speaker 1: of like halfway down there, Oh I canna do something
Speaker 1: else now, you know, I'm gonna Because that's the luxury
Speaker 1: of doing it by myself. I can do it without
Speaker 1: it derailing the session, you know, so I can kind
Speaker 1: of just like, oh, you know, now now I want
Speaker 1: to think of some lyrics, or now I want to
Speaker 1: do a bit of mixing. You know, I want to
Speaker 1: edit some drums, you know, I'll do everything at once
Speaker 1: and then which which can which can sort of like
Speaker 1: create this sort of like complete mess of and and
Speaker 1: can make me feel can can make you lost in
Speaker 1: the progress of a song. So sometimes I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know where I am with this, So I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know if it's almost finished or
Speaker 1: if it's nowhere near there, you know. So I'm kind
Speaker 1: of just like in lost in this, in this, uh
Speaker 1: in the in the woods? Do you ever go too
Speaker 1: far and have to backtrack? Yes, I mean I hate
Speaker 1: back I hate backtracking, but but yes, um, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I was something I wanted to I've always wanted to know,
Speaker 1: and like maybe maybe you're not able to say because
Speaker 1: if you know, it's like uh secret or whatever. But um,
Speaker 1: with Jesus, you know, because there's the myth that he
Speaker 1: there's a story that he came to you sort of
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks before it was done, and you
Speaker 1: kind of went like, let's get rid of that, Let's
Speaker 1: get rid of that and like strip it down, which
Speaker 1: to me, like that story is like is this holy
Speaker 1: grail of discipline? Like executive discipline to say like we
Speaker 1: don't need any of this, you know, because for me,
Speaker 1: that's it's it's it's it's extremely hard if I recorded
Speaker 1: apart for a song, it's extremely difficult for me to
Speaker 1: say he doesn't need to be in the song, because
Speaker 1: like my brain's like, oh no, there's a there's there'll
Speaker 1: be a place for it, you know. So my songs
Speaker 1: can end up being so extremely dense and I'm just
Speaker 1: sort of finding a way to sort of like fit
Speaker 1: in there, in there. But to me, like the greatest
Speaker 1: strength and the greatest ability in production is to say
Speaker 1: all of this stuff here doesn't doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: you know. So I I real wonder to know how
Speaker 1: that like happened. Well, um, you have to be ruthless
Speaker 1: in the edit, and uh rot I like that word ruthless.
Speaker 1: It's the right word because you have to be comfortable
Speaker 1: taking your favorite part out of a song if it
Speaker 1: doesn't if it doesn't serve the song. The most important
Speaker 1: thing is that what what's presented is the best that
Speaker 1: it could possibly be, and it's not a collection of
Speaker 1: things in that one song. It's what makes this song
Speaker 1: the best it could possibly be, And anything that doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be there, needs to go. And I would
Speaker 1: say just the opposite in terms of I never feel
Speaker 1: bad about taking stuff out. But then again, you know,
Speaker 1: from the beginning, there's always been my uh, my instinct
Speaker 1: is to have the least amount of stuff to get
Speaker 1: the idea across with the least amount of stuff. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that that's um. I'll say that that's an organizing
Speaker 1: principle for the way I work. But then sometimes we'll decide, oh,
Speaker 1: let's put a bunch of stuff on this, and that's
Speaker 1: the way we like it. It's fine. So it's not
Speaker 1: a uh, it's not a rule to live by, but
Speaker 1: it's a it's a way of thinking. And and there's
Speaker 1: a reason for it, which is when you clear as
Speaker 1: much space as possible, the things that are left, you
Speaker 1: really hear them, you really feel their personality. There's less um,
Speaker 1: there's less jocking for for your attention. So each thing
Speaker 1: gets to live in its own space. And that's space
Speaker 1: is what makes things sound so beautiful. It's the it's
Speaker 1: really you know, the old the old adage, the quiet
Speaker 1: between the notes. Yeah, exactly, Matt, And that's that's that's
Speaker 1: that's ruly remarkable. Because as for me, it's like it
Speaker 1: would be torture to do something like that, you know,
Speaker 1: like the idea for me, because I'm listening to you go,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh fuck, you know, because my brain it's
Speaker 1: to the place my brain goes to is like, how
Speaker 1: can a song be the best that it can be
Speaker 1: without your favorite bit in the song? Well, that the
Speaker 1: favorite bit might end up being a different song. Yeah, true, true,
Speaker 1: it's like what serves the same. It's like it's It's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I learned early on we're
Speaker 1: working with bands who are really great players, is that
Speaker 1: most great players want to show that they're great players,
Speaker 1: and there is there isn't much room for that in recording.
Speaker 1: In recording, it really is what needs to be there
Speaker 1: to best serve the song. It's not in certain unless,
Speaker 1: of course, it's you know, a guitar hero album and
Speaker 1: it's really about showing the dexterity of the player. But
Speaker 1: if it's about if it's about the songs, it's never
Speaker 1: about the coolest part. It's about how the parts interact
Speaker 1: to make the greatest fall. And sometimes the thing that's
Speaker 1: really cool ends up being a distraction. Yeah, Yeah, it's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: kind of philosophy that I'm like developing in myself at
Speaker 1: the moment, you know, because like so much of my
Speaker 1: music has been this kind of like this like layered
Speaker 1: psych rock kind of symphonies. You know, Like with Loan
Speaker 1: Reasm was kind of like the pinnacle of that, right
Speaker 1: because it was so indulgent. It was like, Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna this sent melody, I'm gonna do this fucking guitar line, Oh,
Speaker 1: this Basseline's going to come in here, you know, and
Speaker 1: it was like packed in the packed in. So it's
Speaker 1: like really sonically, it's really interesting album listen to because
Speaker 1: nothing really jumps out at you except all these bits,
Speaker 1: which is it's simultaneously what's wrong with it but also
Speaker 1: what's kind of like charming and beautiful about it. But
Speaker 1: you know, like that kind of discipline that you're talking
Speaker 1: about is something that I'm that that I that I
Speaker 1: see is as u kind of one of the greatest
Speaker 1: wisdoms to have, you know, being able to sense what
Speaker 1: what what what a piece of music needs and what
Speaker 1: it doesn't needs doesn't need, and and the idea that
Speaker 1: maybe for a particular project, you want it to be
Speaker 1: super dense and yeah, you know, stepping on itself and
Speaker 1: that's the that's that's what makes that project that project.
Speaker 1: That's fine. So it's not it's not like everything has
Speaker 1: to be that way. It's more of a no, you're on,
Speaker 1: it's in the bag of tricks. It's in the bag
Speaker 1: of tricks, right, gotcha? Yeah, Yeah, no, for sure. I
Speaker 1: guess I just feel like, yeah, that that that's kind
Speaker 1: of like a because it's a new and wonderful thing
Speaker 1: for me. It's kind of it's one of those things
Speaker 1: I'm curious about. You know. Well, the next time that
Speaker 1: we're both in the same place and our uh and
Speaker 1: the world is the world where we're allowed to be
Speaker 1: in the same room, then let's let's get together and
Speaker 1: listen to music together and I bet all be fun.
Speaker 1: Fuck yeah, man, that sounds good. I love that. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Kevin Parker for jumping on zoom to talk with
Speaker 1: Rick about his new album. Be sure to check out
Speaker 1: The Slow Rush, along with our other favorite Tamo Paula songs,
Speaker 1: on a playlist we created at Broken record podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: You should also know we'll be taking a little break
Speaker 1: over the next two weeks, but we'll be back May
Speaker 1: nineteenth with new episodes for you. In the meantime, stay
Speaker 1: in touch with us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod,
Speaker 1: Shoot us a message if there's an interview you really
Speaker 1: want to hear us do and dive into old episodes
Speaker 1: of the podcast you might have missed on whatever podcast
Speaker 1: app you use, or on our YouTube channel at YouTube
Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken Record Podcast. Broken Record is produced
Speaker 1: to help from Jason Gambrel, me La Belle, Leah Rose,
Speaker 1: and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. A theme musics by
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening. Four