Speaker 1: Welcome to Inside the Studio presented by I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Joe Lee. So on this home edition
Speaker 1: of the show, our Quarantine correspondent Jordan runt Hog talked
Speaker 1: with Ryan Tater. And you may know Ryan from his
Speaker 1: band One Republic, or you may know Ryan as the
Speaker 1: prolific songwriter and producer who's the answer to the eternal
Speaker 1: question what do you two and Paul McCartney have in
Speaker 1: common with the Jonas brothers and Beyonce? I mean, how
Speaker 1: prolific is Ryan Tatter? He just released two tracks recorded
Speaker 1: during Lockdown, Let's Lose Somebody with Kago in Better Days
Speaker 1: with One Republic. But he also told Jordan that during
Speaker 1: the first one and twenty days of Quarantine he wrote
Speaker 1: more songs than he had in the previous nine or
Speaker 1: ten months. Except it's what else he had to say
Speaker 1: about the impact of this time. That a big reason
Speaker 1: that we started this whole home edition of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio to let you know how artists were coping with
Speaker 1: this moment, how it's impacting not just the way they
Speaker 1: make music, but their lives. And Ryan really let us
Speaker 1: inside all of that. What he is to say is fascinating.
Speaker 1: So if you enjoy this episode, be sure to listen
Speaker 1: to the I Heart Radio podcast that Jordan's hosts, which
Speaker 1: is called Rivals Music's Greatest Feuds, and which is available
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody, My name is
Speaker 1: Jordan Runt Doug, But enough about me. My guest today
Speaker 1: has been called the undercover King of Pop by Billboard Magazine.
Speaker 1: He's one of the most gifted songwriters of our time,
Speaker 1: crafting hits for Beyonce, Adele, Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga. And that's when he's not fronting
Speaker 1: his own multi platinum rock band One Republic. The group
Speaker 1: repoised to release their fifth album Human this spring. With
Speaker 1: the pandemic out other plants, the album's delayed, but he
Speaker 1: has plenty more on his plate. He just wrapped up
Speaker 1: the second season of saw Land, launched the CBD drink
Speaker 1: called Mad Tasty, and it's in the midst of developing
Speaker 1: a movie music with Margot Robbie, and he's still writing
Speaker 1: more songs than ever. Frankly, I don't know how he's
Speaker 1: made time to be here today, but I'm so glad
Speaker 1: he has. Ryan Tedder Welcome thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me and thanks for having me. How are you today?
Speaker 1: How does this day in Lockdown find you? I'm good,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm okay. I to be honest, man,
Speaker 1: I kind of like I was doing really really good,
Speaker 1: uh and and probably almost like irrationally good, irrationally well
Speaker 1: during the COVID craisiness since the middle of March and
Speaker 1: decided to make lemonade out of lemons. You know. Have
Speaker 1: have easily written more songs in in the last hundred
Speaker 1: and ten twenty days than I had in the previous
Speaker 1: nine months. To be quite frank, I mean I just
Speaker 1: pretty much four or five sessions a day, sometimes too
Speaker 1: a day. Um, got some great cuts on some big
Speaker 1: artists coming some great stuff in the in the you know,
Speaker 1: in the Hopper and dough head, first into TV and
Speaker 1: film rated a handful of TV shows back going back
Speaker 1: to March and April, and then it finally slowed down
Speaker 1: this last week and it all kind of hit me
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I got I like, had
Speaker 1: four months worth of being bummed all in like forty
Speaker 1: eight hours. So yeah, so today I'm just like I'm
Speaker 1: over it. I'm just over the pandemic. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: over the constant news like changing every day. You know.
Speaker 1: I I know about eighteen people that have gotten it.
Speaker 1: I know three people that have died from it, So um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm over dealing with people in parts of
Speaker 1: the country that don't think it's real. I was just
Speaker 1: texting with my stepsister and my and what she said
Speaker 1: was so true. She she lives in Oklahoma, and she's
Speaker 1: she's taking it very seriously, but a lot of friends
Speaker 1: and family aren't. And the reality is, if you don't
Speaker 1: know someone who got sick with it, you don't have context.
Speaker 1: You don't realize how bad this thing is until you're
Speaker 1: face timing one of your friends who's like gasping or
Speaker 1: hacking up along and hasn't moved in two weeks. And like,
Speaker 1: I've had so many of those facetimes in those calls
Speaker 1: with people have gotten it that I can't not take
Speaker 1: it seriously. But the kind of like selfish, just like
Speaker 1: self centered part of me has finally kicked in and
Speaker 1: it's just like I don't want to deal with it anymore.
Speaker 1: I want to get on a plane and fly to
Speaker 1: Denmark or Hawaii or New Zealand. I want to stop
Speaker 1: being scared of infecting my sixty year old mother in law.
Speaker 1: I'm a prime candidate for that. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: tell myself, you know this two shell pass and uh
Speaker 1: and try and getting the headspace to be creative again.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you just have to, like, you know, process
Speaker 1: whatever you're going through and let it. If you're if
Speaker 1: you're upset or depressed for a couple of days, be depressed,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, just just go through it. What's that
Speaker 1: Winston Church? Alive and going through hell? Keep going. If
Speaker 1: you're going through hell, keep going. The other thing you
Speaker 1: also said is democracy is the worst form of government
Speaker 1: except for all the other forms we've tried. Yeah, pretty much. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this is just a whole new frontier in terms of
Speaker 1: anxiety and and and you know, rational fear. That's the
Speaker 1: scariest part. I mean, what's that frame? You know, just
Speaker 1: just because your paranoia doesn't mean you're wrong. What do
Speaker 1: you do in the past when you've been in this
Speaker 1: kind of headspace, Like what's helped you move through it?
Speaker 1: Is it music? Is it family? Is it all the above?
Speaker 1: Is it exercise? In the past? Two things exercises my
Speaker 1: kind of go to because it's free and it's there,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you're foolish not to um. But honestly,
Speaker 1: the other one is a change of scenery. I've been
Speaker 1: touring for fifteen years and and NonStop, like if I'll
Speaker 1: do four hundred thousand miles in a year. So I
Speaker 1: think part of it is to be so accustomed to
Speaker 1: being around the world and seeing all these different things
Speaker 1: and having the stimulation and the interaction and friends and
Speaker 1: different cities around the world that I always get to see.
Speaker 1: It's addictive and like to go from from that to
Speaker 1: literally a dead stop, like nobody does that, like it's crazy,
Speaker 1: and so I have done that. So I think part
Speaker 1: of it's that I'm part of that. Like my brain
Speaker 1: is going like where could I be right now? Like okay,
Speaker 1: like let's you know, like it's it's New Zealand, it's
Speaker 1: beautiful there, Let's go there. You released a new song
Speaker 1: I think the end of March called Better Days, which
Speaker 1: I had so much hope in it. You know, it's
Speaker 1: such a hopeful message in the face of COVID. Was
Speaker 1: that inspired directly by the pandemic or that been brewing
Speaker 1: a little bit beforehand, and the words took on a
Speaker 1: new meeting. The chorus was written probably nine to twelve
Speaker 1: months beforehand, but all of the verse lyrics and the
Speaker 1: rest of the song, the meat of the song was
Speaker 1: written um during the pandemic, during the first during the
Speaker 1: two weeks that I was quarantined at at this studio
Speaker 1: UM with a couple of band members. Uh, it just
Speaker 1: it's all. It was also new and also it felt
Speaker 1: like a wave crashing, you know, over America, and so
Speaker 1: it's all I could think about, and and you know,
Speaker 1: the news I've now For anybody listening, I highly recommend
Speaker 1: if you are as sick of the news as I am. Uh, CNN,
Speaker 1: Fox News. I don't care which side of which. It's
Speaker 1: hilarious at this point. To call either of those companies
Speaker 1: like quote unquote news channels is just a joke. Um,
Speaker 1: they should be called op ed channels because their opinion
Speaker 1: pieces I've now been relegated to. It's so boring. But
Speaker 1: if you want to know what's going on without any spin,
Speaker 1: it's the Associated Press. I go to Associated Press or Reuters.
Speaker 1: And that's been my new thing because I just kept going,
Speaker 1: like after like three months of CNN and then for
Speaker 1: out of for fun, just to know what my family
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma was watched, like what news they were getting.
Speaker 1: I go to Fox News and see a completely different
Speaker 1: set of facts reported with completely different color. UM. And
Speaker 1: watching both of those, I've now realized. Then I go
Speaker 1: to the source of the news articles, which is the
Speaker 1: Associated Press and Reuters, and read the report which is
Speaker 1: as it happened without color. I'm I'm trying to focus
Speaker 1: on reading books, like I'm reading three books at the
Speaker 1: same time right now. UM, I am. I downloaded the
Speaker 1: call map, which actually works. By the way, the meditation
Speaker 1: app UM, big shout out. I'm not sponsored by them,
Speaker 1: the big shout out com and UM. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what. There is a vaccine for trapped in a
Speaker 1: cage island fever during a pandemic, and it's called wine.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I've been following um quarantine cuisine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I kept that up for about three weeks.
Speaker 1: I did, I did. I did it for like three weeks,
Speaker 1: quarantine cuisine. UM and I just if I didn't have
Speaker 1: a life, I would have kept doing it. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a wife and kiss my my I got on
Speaker 1: my wife was like, you are not gonna do quarantine.
Speaker 1: We're not that's doing. That's not happening every now. Um.
Speaker 1: But I didn't stop cooking. I've actually got way better
Speaker 1: at cooking. And they funny you mentioned that that is
Speaker 1: the other thing that helps me keep my sanity. Everything
Speaker 1: in the music industry has been paused so tremendously. I
Speaker 1: developed a TV show, which I will talk about now,
Speaker 1: just to warn anybody else off from from doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. But I developed a created shows being in
Speaker 1: a pandemic, and I thought, Okay, what if there was
Speaker 1: a TV series that was super high depth, super high
Speaker 1: end that every artist that wants to release an album
Speaker 1: or single they don't have an anchor to release it with.
Speaker 1: So I just worked backwards from like, what would one
Speaker 1: republic want? I would like a concert special where we
Speaker 1: play all of our hits and then I go into
Speaker 1: detail telling the stories behind those hits, like and I
Speaker 1: talked about where this idea came from and when, where
Speaker 1: I was when I wrote this, and how did I
Speaker 1: come up with that lyric? And how did I come
Speaker 1: up with you know, the phrase counting stars? Where did
Speaker 1: I think of that? And apologize who's it about? Like
Speaker 1: you know, and go into those songs and go behind
Speaker 1: the hits and then at the very end of the
Speaker 1: concert play our new single and launch our new single
Speaker 1: and album off of a TV special. And I was like,
Speaker 1: what would that look like and how many artists would
Speaker 1: want to do it? Well, every artist is at home
Speaker 1: doing nothing, but all these venues are sitting empty. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I've been working very quickly on getting this show together
Speaker 1: and right now we have it. That sounds incredible. I mean,
Speaker 1: you mentioned having three four songwriting sessions a day as
Speaker 1: well on top of all of this. How has you
Speaker 1: know zoom songwriting affected your process or has it? It's
Speaker 1: made my process way more efficient. When I said earlier
Speaker 1: than I thrived in the first part of COVID, it
Speaker 1: was because of the zoom sessions. Like I, it's because
Speaker 1: the barrier to entry is so low, the value proposition
Speaker 1: is so high. So here's what happens in reality. I'm
Speaker 1: in West Hollywood. Let's say I have a session today
Speaker 1: at three pm and one of the one of the
Speaker 1: writers or monsters and strangers, whether we're over in Sherman Oaks, right,
Speaker 1: So that's gonna be that's gonna take them thirty forty minutes, easy,
Speaker 1: to get here. Let's say I have I want Michael Pollock,
Speaker 1: who's who wrote Marion five Memories and a bunch of
Speaker 1: other songs. I write with them all the time. Okay,
Speaker 1: he lives in like I don't even know a thousand
Speaker 1: oaks or something like like, that's gonna take him an
Speaker 1: hour to get here. Okay, so already that's a time
Speaker 1: traffic stress driving. Everybody shows up on the scene. And
Speaker 1: then what happens is not every day, no matter how
Speaker 1: good you are, are you going to write a smash.
Speaker 1: It's just not gonna happen. You're gonna write a lot
Speaker 1: of like like A minus and A songs. But really,
Speaker 1: the A plus songs are the only ones in the anomaly.
Speaker 1: Hits are pretty much the only ones that exists anymore,
Speaker 1: just a great song. Where you used to be able
Speaker 1: to just work a great song. Those are a lot
Speaker 1: harder to be successful at radio and streaming these days
Speaker 1: because they get drowned out by one TikTok video that
Speaker 1: just goes viral. But you know, I've really diagnosed why,
Speaker 1: because me and a few other friends have actually done
Speaker 1: better in the Zoom sessions than before, Like we enjoy
Speaker 1: them more and we were thinking, well, because in a
Speaker 1: zoom session, if a song is just not turning out great,
Speaker 1: people don't hesitate to be like, guys, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not loving this. Let's start something else. So let's just
Speaker 1: pick it up tomorrow. Right, Well, if I drove an
Speaker 1: hour and he drove an hour and a half and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fight traffic going home, We're finish in this
Speaker 1: damn song even if it sucks. And like that type
Speaker 1: of thing is actually not it's actually contrary to healthy
Speaker 1: songwriting because you're you're now letting the fact that you're there,
Speaker 1: you drove, and these other ancillary factors that have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the quality of a song influence your
Speaker 1: decision to finish that song and to like dig your
Speaker 1: heels in and I've done it. I've done it countless time.
Speaker 1: So well, they drove all the way here. I don't
Speaker 1: really think this song is like a smash, but you
Speaker 1: know what, let's just finish it. And and like in
Speaker 1: a zoom session, man, you just pull that rip chord.
Speaker 1: You pull the rip chord and you start a new
Speaker 1: song or you or you see, guys, let's pick it
Speaker 1: up tomorrow, and you don't feel like you've put out
Speaker 1: four people that drove halfway across town, Like I missed
Speaker 1: the camaraderie and I missed the interaction of people in person.
Speaker 1: But I think almost every rider you talked to would
Speaker 1: tell you that we are really good at wasting a
Speaker 1: lot of time in a session. I mean, because half
Speaker 1: half the fun. Ross Golan, who hosts you know, the
Speaker 1: the Penultimate Songwriter blah Our podcast, will tell you he's
Speaker 1: always that like I enjoy. The reason I like songwriting
Speaker 1: is the hang. I like to hang, and that's that's
Speaker 1: half the fun of it. If you end up with
Speaker 1: a hit, great, but it's it's all about the hang.
Speaker 1: Is there a place when you're actually writing the song,
Speaker 1: once the conversations is over and everything that you always
Speaker 1: start like is there? I don't know if it's like
Speaker 1: a ritual, even like a mental ritual that you begin
Speaker 1: when you're when you're really sitting down the start the
Speaker 1: actual act of writing. I don't think there's a I
Speaker 1: light a candle. I've always done that. I have. I'm
Speaker 1: big on anyone who knows me knows I'm like my
Speaker 1: candle game is strong. It's probably one of my biggest
Speaker 1: budgetary allowances annually big on candles. So that's that'd be
Speaker 1: one thing I want the room to the room needs
Speaker 1: to be clean and like and like and like together
Speaker 1: clean and smell good. That's about my only like no
Speaker 1: bad smells good, smell good natural lighting. Um gone is
Speaker 1: the day that I work in dark studios like that,
Speaker 1: I do that type of stuff. I'm just not. I
Speaker 1: spent years in dark studios, years and years and years
Speaker 1: and studios without windows, and I finally I just drew
Speaker 1: line of sand um a few years ago and just
Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. I even built one. I
Speaker 1: built like the most extraordinary student studio imaginable in Colorado.
Speaker 1: I used it for four years and then I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm depressed. I can't be down here anymore. Like I
Speaker 1: need natural I'm a big, big, big sun natural light person.
Speaker 1: So my studio now is tons of natural light. Also
Speaker 1: if it's an if it's a cool and if it's
Speaker 1: like seventy two or below, I'll open the doors. The
Speaker 1: whole thing just opens. So like it's like you're writing
Speaker 1: indoors and outdoors at the same time. And vibe. Vibe
Speaker 1: is my ritual. Vibe is my ritual man um ritual wise,
Speaker 1: if it's with an artist, I get them talking. I
Speaker 1: get them talking. I asked them how they're doing, what's
Speaker 1: going on in life, what have they been listening to?
Speaker 1: If they're in a relationship, I kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I I leaned in on that a little bit, because
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten that there's the song. I
Speaker 1: did a whole run of sessions with Miley Cyrus, with
Speaker 1: Ali Tempos and Andrew Watt, Louis Bell back right before COVID,
Speaker 1: and that's all we ever did. Miley blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: what's up? And Miley can talk, so then it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, she gives you everything. Really good artists. Good
Speaker 1: artists are vulnerable. Good artists know themselves the best ones,
Speaker 1: and them talking gives you all the fodder that you
Speaker 1: need for that day. UM. If you don't get that,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of times where you don't, UM,
Speaker 1: then you kind of hope. I mean, I'm a firm
Speaker 1: believer and I used to be much better at this,
Speaker 1: and I should probably start doing this again now. But
Speaker 1: back in the day, I was the guy. UM when
Speaker 1: I started writing, I made it. I just you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't learn this anywhere. I just kind of thought
Speaker 1: it up. I guess myself. I thought, I will always
Speaker 1: have two or three titles and concepts in the back
Speaker 1: of my pocket that are bulletproof, so no matter what,
Speaker 1: so I lean into whatever the other writers and the
Speaker 1: artist wants to do. But if anyone gets stuck, I go, guys,
Speaker 1: I got a singer, check this one out, and I
Speaker 1: just drop it like Mike drop in. I'd done that
Speaker 1: for years. So that's my other rituals. Do I have
Speaker 1: a fallback plan? Do I have something? You know, if
Speaker 1: everyone gets all weird and insecure because nothing great is happening,
Speaker 1: do you have a parachute? Um? And so, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. I don't have any other kind
Speaker 1: of ritual. I don't like to listen to the people
Speaker 1: unless I'm referencing something. Um, you know, I might we
Speaker 1: might play a couple of songs like oh remember that
Speaker 1: like me and Julio down by the schoolyard. I want
Speaker 1: to do a song it sounds like that, like let's
Speaker 1: play that, you know what I mean? And then you
Speaker 1: you get a little bit of a you get it
Speaker 1: in your in the air, you get the sound of
Speaker 1: it in the air. Um, I'm very careful with that stuff.
Speaker 1: They all play a song one time, and usually I'll
Speaker 1: play like fifteen seconds of it because you don't want
Speaker 1: to accidentally, you know, interpolate something and end up in
Speaker 1: a sticky situation. I was lucky enough to speak to
Speaker 1: to the wonderful singer Ash recently and she she hosted
Speaker 1: a pet Sounds fifty four anniversary live stream that that
Speaker 1: you were involved with the absolutely incredible version of God
Speaker 1: Only Knows. I was amazing. What is it about that
Speaker 1: album that that speaks to you? Um? Well, me specifically,
Speaker 1: the first album that I ever had, that was ever
Speaker 1: given to me was Beach Boys. So my earliest memory
Speaker 1: of music is the Beach Boys. I was five years old.
Speaker 1: It's so playful. Their music is so playful. Their melodies
Speaker 1: are so playful that I had no concept how absolutely
Speaker 1: insanely complicated and difficult the arrange each mens were that
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson was doing. Honestly, until God only knows, I,
Speaker 1: I sat down. I did definitely did not get I
Speaker 1: definitely procrastinated, but I sat down the day before it
Speaker 1: was due that I had to hand in that video.
Speaker 1: I sat down to learn it. It's pretty it's pretty
Speaker 1: much like the day before it aired, Like I sat
Speaker 1: down to learn God only knows, thinking, oh, I'll just
Speaker 1: sit down and hammer this out in five seconds. And
Speaker 1: then I sat down and just like God value uh.
Speaker 1: Like he's changing keys every single phrase. He doesn't the
Speaker 1: note that I thought my whole life he was landing
Speaker 1: on he wasn't, and and changing the chord underneath the support,
Speaker 1: the new voicing. It's this constant change. The bass parts
Speaker 1: are crazy, insane like it is. He's such a better
Speaker 1: writer whever than I am. Brian Wilson Um And look,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've said this for years, no no, no
Speaker 1: offense to to myself and every other modern musician and writer,
Speaker 1: but we are all anyone. If you're in your twenties
Speaker 1: or thirties, your your forties right now, you're just a hack.
Speaker 1: Like we're all hacks. Compared to the musicians and writers
Speaker 1: of the sixties and seventies, you had to be a beast.
Speaker 1: Listen to Stevie Wonder songs in the Key of Life,
Speaker 1: you know, back to back album of the year. I've
Speaker 1: produced Stevie Wonder, I've written with him, I have seen
Speaker 1: his genius firsthand. No one comes club, no one comes
Speaker 1: close to him, Like, there's not you. All right, you
Speaker 1: might have one singer alive now that's a signed recording
Speaker 1: artist that maybe can sing as well as he is. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but I don't even think that exists. Like in terms
Speaker 1: of male vocalists, I can't in anyone right now that
Speaker 1: that can do the stuff he can. Then you combine
Speaker 1: it with the fact that he knows every single note
Speaker 1: in the universe and how to combine all of them.
Speaker 1: He's Jacob Collier level U piano player and keyboard player.
Speaker 1: You know. To all you musos Jacob Coller fans out there, um,
Speaker 1: he's as good as John Mayer is on guitar. He's
Speaker 1: that good on that that little harpsichord thing that he plays,
Speaker 1: the autoheart whatever that thing is, like there is there
Speaker 1: are no comparables anymore to the level of musicianship you
Speaker 1: had to have in the sixteen seventies. And McCartney told me,
Speaker 1: he said, the reason you had to be good back
Speaker 1: then was it was too expensive to not be recording
Speaker 1: studio time was so expensive and tape was so expensive
Speaker 1: that if you didn't nail it on the first or
Speaker 1: second take, you were out the door. So every all
Speaker 1: your signed recording artists were glorified studio. They were studio
Speaker 1: musicians like you know most look, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about Fleetwood Mac. Like any one of them
Speaker 1: would have been a session player by themselves if they
Speaker 1: weren't in Fleetwood Mac. You could take apart most of
Speaker 1: the bands in the sixties and seventies, especially all the
Speaker 1: artists on the Wrecking Crew era. Almost every artist was
Speaker 1: good enough to be a session player, Like they were
Speaker 1: like interchangeable, and that just doesn't exist anymore. Like I know,
Speaker 1: like half producers I know don't play a single instrument,
Speaker 1: and yet they can still do hits because now it's
Speaker 1: more about taste and like sampling and and it's just
Speaker 1: a different era. It's a it's a completely different era.
Speaker 1: I mean writing with McCartney, I as a songwriter, I
Speaker 1: can't even imagine being in sort of the if I
Speaker 1: made the John Lennon seat, Like what was it like
Speaker 1: being up close writing with him? Did he do things differently?
Speaker 1: Like is there anything did he approach it in a
Speaker 1: way that was completely different to you? Or was it
Speaker 1: just magic? I still kind of couldn't believe as is
Speaker 1: walking to the door. Is like there was that sense
Speaker 1: of like, oh my god, I'm about to work with
Speaker 1: and apparently from his manager, so that a lot of
Speaker 1: people it doesn't work with him because they might get
Speaker 1: in the room with him and they just can't like
Speaker 1: can't function because it's McCartney and he's the single most
Speaker 1: successful greatest songwriter of all time, like period, full stop. UM,
Speaker 1: And I kind of knew that, but I just I've learned.
Speaker 1: I learned years ago to start telling myself when I'm
Speaker 1: like I shouldn't be here, Why am I here? How
Speaker 1: how is this happening? Said No, you actually deserve to
Speaker 1: be here. I've worked with and I was going down
Speaker 1: the list of my head going well, who else is
Speaker 1: going to work with them? Like I mean, once I
Speaker 1: got to the end of it, I was like, I
Speaker 1: was like, ironically, I might be very like the maybe
Speaker 1: the most qualified or one of the most qualified people
Speaker 1: to work with him. And so anyway, the first day
Speaker 1: we were feeling each other out, and um, I was like,
Speaker 1: play me your scraps, play me like just ideas you
Speaker 1: have floating around, and let me see if I can
Speaker 1: turn one of them into a song, which is how
Speaker 1: a lot of the more UM, honestly older artists, but
Speaker 1: more like traditional UM. It's an old school way of producing, right,
Speaker 1: rolling stones UM. Even with you two, a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, Bono and Edge would just play me jam sessions.
Speaker 1: Here's a here's a fifteen minute jam session. There's some
Speaker 1: melodies over here, there's a guitar thing over here, there's
Speaker 1: some drums over here. And then it's kind of like
Speaker 1: I sit down and go listen to it, and I
Speaker 1: just i'd like, I like tap a mark or whenever
Speaker 1: I hear something I think is sticky or cool, and
Speaker 1: then I have to frankenstein that into a song and
Speaker 1: kind of go, here's what I think is the basic
Speaker 1: structure of what you did UM in a three and
Speaker 1: a half four minute song, And more or less that's
Speaker 1: what I did on the first song with McCartney. And
Speaker 1: then by the second day we had more of a
Speaker 1: camaraderie and you know, and I'm I'm high energy and
Speaker 1: take the piss out of myself and everybody else, so
Speaker 1: like I'm not people don't. The people realize pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: I don't take myself too seriously, and you know, it
Speaker 1: kind of just evolved and then then by the final
Speaker 1: couple of days, I just once we had a song
Speaker 1: mapped out like a basically, I have him go on
Speaker 1: the piano and just play as I just play for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, and he would he'd play. I'd set the
Speaker 1: tempo and he'd play chords. UM. I remember I played
Speaker 1: him Grizzly Bear two weeks, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite songs, and and I just said, hey, um, I
Speaker 1: just said, hey, uh, these guys. I was like, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of modern indie bands that basically sound like
Speaker 1: they're doing their version of what you would have done.
Speaker 1: So I said, I think it'd be funny to do
Speaker 1: your version of their version of what you would have done.
Speaker 1: And so we had fun with that. I played him
Speaker 1: some stuff that that I thought was pretty Beatles inspired. UM,
Speaker 1: and I just hit record man, and then once he'd
Speaker 1: stumble into a chord progression I liked, I would just
Speaker 1: I'd be like, yo, just do that again, do that again,
Speaker 1: do that one, and then we we'd make that into
Speaker 1: a section and then map out the whole song, and
Speaker 1: then i'd help him with melody. A lot of mel
Speaker 1: melody seems to be when I'm working with the more
Speaker 1: like like storied, like like beloved acts like the the
Speaker 1: you twos of the world and the Peters and the
Speaker 1: Gabriels and the The thing that I know that they
Speaker 1: treasure is their lyrics, right, and so I really I'm
Speaker 1: very careful unless I have it just a stone cold
Speaker 1: killer lyric or obvious concept. That much is very indelibly
Speaker 1: tied to who they are and their characters. So I
Speaker 1: try to help with melody as much as possible. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's all about bedside manner, like you don't want
Speaker 1: to push too hard, like my way or the highway,
Speaker 1: like you know, it's very much trying to serve. You're
Speaker 1: trying to serve them. And um, you know, by the
Speaker 1: by the last couple of days, man, the last day
Speaker 1: I just told Paul, it was like, all right, go
Speaker 1: let's track the bass. He tracked the bass, and then
Speaker 1: he'd run to the other start of the room, alright,
Speaker 1: track guitar. Then he sat down to the drums, did
Speaker 1: the entire drums. Then he went over the meltron, then
Speaker 1: he went over the harpsichord, and like so every single
Speaker 1: instrument is McCartney um, and and then I'm singing background
Speaker 1: vocals with them. You know, somewhere there's footage of all
Speaker 1: this stuff. I was too scared to put my phone
Speaker 1: out and film anything, but um, he has a footage
Speaker 1: because there was a camera either. Um. But yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it was wild. It was my favorite sessions in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: you know. And his little tiny village in England. It
Speaker 1: was incredible. What are you working on now musically that
Speaker 1: you were the most excited about? Um, Musically that I'm
Speaker 1: the most excited about right now. I'm trying to think musically,
Speaker 1: what about what am I playing right now? We have
Speaker 1: a one Republic song that I'm obsessed with that's extremely
Speaker 1: different and it feels like a bit of a unicorn
Speaker 1: that I'm very happy with called West Coast that just
Speaker 1: it's it's my it's our owed to the Mamas of
Speaker 1: the papas, and it is like and I feel like
Speaker 1: we kind of nailed it. Like it's like it's crazy.
Speaker 1: It is maybe one of my favorite songs I've ever
Speaker 1: done in this band. Um, So I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about I can't talk about it like I
Speaker 1: did a lot of the Miley so I can tell
Speaker 1: you what I have done. I've done a bunch of
Speaker 1: Sam Smith stuff that I'm very proud of. That's new.
Speaker 1: A bunch of new Miley Cyrus stuff, um that I'm
Speaker 1: proud of, uh, you know, through my hat, through my
Speaker 1: name in the hat. Um on a couple of Baber songs.
Speaker 1: We'll see if they make the cut, because I know
Speaker 1: he's recorded a lot of songs and I'm not holding
Speaker 1: my breath. But but I did did do one with
Speaker 1: Scrillis that I'm pretty happy about. Um, I'm I'm excited about.
Speaker 1: Um what else? What else? What else? Um? I'd like
Speaker 1: to do something with Calvin Harris. I feel like he
Speaker 1: and I would be would do something cool together. Um.
Speaker 1: And as far as new artists that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of, like new artists in the new artist world, Um,
Speaker 1: it's so hard because it's like it's like I can't
Speaker 1: pronounce half the names of the artists are out now,
Speaker 1: Like there's the new Like I'm just gonna be straight,
Speaker 1: Like I look at Top fifty and it's six or
Speaker 1: seven artists that we all know, and then like it
Speaker 1: feels like already won hit Wonders And like I thought
Speaker 1: it was just me who felt that way. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm not I I don't. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: come off like an asshole. I'm just trying to come
Speaker 1: off like I open it, I click it. I look
Speaker 1: for the Caigo record I have out right now. I
Speaker 1: see a few of my friends other songs like my
Speaker 1: my friends, Um, you know what temposey Monster Strangers, who
Speaker 1: did that awesome do a leap a record? I see
Speaker 1: Roddy Rich. You know, I'm actually trying to sign a
Speaker 1: writer right now who's a big who produced the last
Speaker 1: Ready Rich single? Like I'm actively looking for um uh
Speaker 1: like hip hop producers. I'm trying to get more versed
Speaker 1: than that. I love hip hop. I started as a
Speaker 1: hip hop producer, like I started. That was my first
Speaker 1: two or three years. Yeah, but even all the first
Speaker 1: songs and beats that I sold in l A, when
Speaker 1: I was making you know, thousand bucks here, five thousand here,
Speaker 1: I was doing, Uh, it was it was all like rap.
Speaker 1: Like everybody was working with was a rapper. I was
Speaker 1: doing hip hop session starting at ten pm, go until
Speaker 1: five am, six am. Um. It was a different world.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm getting back into that a little bit.
Speaker 1: Since since coronavirus I'm I'm just haven't. I haven't been
Speaker 1: scouring for new artists. I've been honestly listening to old
Speaker 1: things that make me feel good. And I think the
Speaker 1: trend in streaming the last four months has very much
Speaker 1: been that way to uptick in catalog artists since covid Um. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: like I put on Best I'm not even like I
Speaker 1: wasn't live. I don't I didn't grow up in the seventies.
Speaker 1: But like I put on the Best of the seventies
Speaker 1: the other day and I listened to it for four hours.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been listening to um like Fleet Foxes
Speaker 1: and like Cage the Elephant and Vampire Weekend and Old Killers.
Speaker 1: That's my that's the stuff that I act actively listen
Speaker 1: to old Kanye Um in Rainbows, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: that's totally sound like the absolute lamist old white guy
Speaker 1: in Rainbows, Like let me just give you that quote. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah man, And then you know, h uh,
Speaker 1: when I'm hoping that some new stuff pops off the
Speaker 1: next few minutes, I've been listening to my all my
Speaker 1: old high school mixed CDs with like the Darkness on
Speaker 1: it and stuff. Yes, yeah, the best is take your
Speaker 1: hands off, by woman. Mother fuck they're they're amazing. My
Speaker 1: last question, if you could snap your fingers, have all
Speaker 1: of us be over, have everything to be back the
Speaker 1: way it was, no corona, no quarantine. What's the first
Speaker 1: thing you do? Play trip, you'd take person, you'd hug,
Speaker 1: thing you do? What is it? Um? The first thing
Speaker 1: I would do. I would take my family for like
Speaker 1: two months pretty much, and I would make up for
Speaker 1: the spring break that we canceled. It was going to
Speaker 1: be the single greatest trip of our lifetime. We're going
Speaker 1: to Tokyo Kyoto, um. And I would go to Japan
Speaker 1: for like two weeks, and then I'd go to the
Speaker 1: south of France, uh in Italy for like six weeks,
Speaker 1: and I would ball out the one thing that that
Speaker 1: and I do it tomorrow. I would do it. I
Speaker 1: would literally like, give me the playing, give me the
Speaker 1: give me the hotels, whatever, let's go. Spare no expense.
Speaker 1: You know, I've worked. I've had an insatiable work ethic
Speaker 1: my whole life. I worked too hard. I worked too much.
Speaker 1: Like I'm aware of that, and I don't. Uh, I've
Speaker 1: done very well, but I don't. Actually I'm one of
Speaker 1: those people that's guilty of like not enjoying it enough.
Speaker 1: I like, I don't. I'm not a flashy guy. I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't ball out. I don't really spend it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, as they say, And and the
Speaker 1: one thing that that is justified and worth spending is
Speaker 1: on experiences more than objects, Like I like art. I've
Speaker 1: got cool art pieces and like a couple of nice
Speaker 1: watches and those things. And I'm kind of like, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty much you know, uh, I don't sit around obsessing
Speaker 1: over it. I'm I'm, I'm I'm, I'm okay there, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not sitting around thinking, oh, I need more things.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I need more experiences with my family. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to be able to take I want to
Speaker 1: be able to take um, you know, uh, the whole
Speaker 1: family and extended family on crazy lifetime experiences and trips.
Speaker 1: So that's what I want to do. Go to south
Speaker 1: of France, you know, when it's not a million degrees.
Speaker 1: I want to do the Maharajah Express train through India, UM,
Speaker 1: which is super dope. It's kind of like the Orient
Speaker 1: Express but for India, super nice, like like high class
Speaker 1: old world turn of the century style UM train through
Speaker 1: through all the regions in India. UM. I want to
Speaker 1: do the Orient Express. I want to I want to
Speaker 1: do some more travel with my family is and I
Speaker 1: would like to do it. I'd like the pandemic to
Speaker 1: be done tomorrow so I can do that, right. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time today, your music. It
Speaker 1: means the world to me people I love so many others.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thanks man, I appreciate it. We
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio Home Edition,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of
Speaker 1: Inside the Studio and other shows from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts,