Speaker 1: Pushkin, Pushkin, Welcome to Broken Record Season two. I'm Malcolm Glado,
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin, Bruce Headlam and I are back eight more
Speaker 1: weeks of conversation with some of the most talented musicians
Speaker 1: in the world. We're gonna talk to them, they're going
Speaker 1: to play for us, and we're starting with an insane
Speaker 1: two part interview with a mere Quest Love Thompson, drummer
Speaker 1: for The Roots, a hip hop band from Philly that
Speaker 1: it has become The Tonight Show's house band. Quest is
Speaker 1: also a producer, a DJ, and an all around musical polymn.
Speaker 1: I sat down with him in Manhattan after a taping
Speaker 1: of The Tonight Show. Rick joined us by a sky
Speaker 1: from a studio in Hawaii. We didn't think we talked
Speaker 1: a Quest for nearly three hours, but he kept pulling
Speaker 1: us in story after story. Afterwards, I texted Rick all
Speaker 1: caps that went well. First off, Amyra, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us, Thank you for having me, Thank you, Reck,
Speaker 1: and I've been looking forward to this all week. You
Speaker 1: first of all, you guys, you know each other from
Speaker 1: how far back from life? When did I first meet you? Rick?
Speaker 1: I think I have a vague action, but I want
Speaker 1: to see if you have the same one as me.
Speaker 1: I think around Voodoo time two thousand ish. I believe
Speaker 1: I met Rick somewhere in La I think it's two thousand. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you my recollection was. We met in the
Speaker 1: lobby of a hotel that had very high ceilings. It
Speaker 1: was really dark, and it was at some sort of
Speaker 1: a big show festival on the East coast, maybe Tibetan
Speaker 1: Freedom Festival, in the hotel in the lobby. Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: could that be yes? I think that's correct, Yes, you're right. DC.
Speaker 1: It was on like second album of yours, it was,
Speaker 1: I know it was early third album, but it was
Speaker 1: about fourth album time. I remember we tried the first
Speaker 1: time we tried to do Tibetan Freedom it rained out,
Speaker 1: so instead I was one of the lucky few people
Speaker 1: that got to see Radiohead at the nine thirty club.
Speaker 1: Really instead you went to well, no, no no, I mean
Speaker 1: they were, you know, like it was like a lightning
Speaker 1: storm threatened the DC portion of the Tibetan Freedom concert.
Speaker 1: So instead, you know, everybody's going home and radio Heads like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, we're going to be the nine thirty clubs.
Speaker 1: So it's a pretty Good Relation Prize. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it was great. I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Speaker 1: We're going to plunge into things musical. Okay, you're so
Speaker 1: in your household growing up, so your dad has an
Speaker 1: extraordinary record collection. Yeah, I understand it. So what do
Speaker 1: you What are you listening to as a as a kid?
Speaker 1: All right, so I grew up with three very distinct
Speaker 1: record collectives. My dad was into what I would sort
Speaker 1: of jokingly say is the yacht rock of his day.
Speaker 1: He was into Mathis streisand vocal groups like he had
Speaker 1: pet sounds, so you know, seeing pet sounds in my house.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I was just like beach Boys whatever.
Speaker 1: But once I got older and realized, oh, their harmony
Speaker 1: game is bar none. Then anybody like flaunting harmony to
Speaker 1: the next level like my dad was on it, or
Speaker 1: vocals to the next level because he was sort of
Speaker 1: like a Nat King Cole type. Mom was more funky
Speaker 1: and hip, So any album cover that had like Marty
Speaker 1: clairwig that like, you know, Miles Davis, Bitch's Brew or
Speaker 1: Santana's album covers like those those oil really funky like
Speaker 1: abstract oil painting covers like she would buy records like
Speaker 1: a like a crate digger or a record collector in
Speaker 1: my day, does like you look at the cover, Oh,
Speaker 1: this monkey gotta be something like that's how she collected
Speaker 1: I got famous Ohio players. Yeah, anything funny? So funny
Speaker 1: you say that because I get a copy of Honey
Speaker 1: when I'm six years old on the corner. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: this is January twenty, nineteen seventy six, Happy fifth birthday, Mare,
Speaker 1: We love you very much, Mommy and Daddy. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's the way that album coming. I'm like, yo, like,
Speaker 1: do you guys realize what you gave me? Like it?
Speaker 1: For those who are not on it's it is a
Speaker 1: very very beautiful, very very NEI. But they were just
Speaker 1: like we saw this high art and that's the thing,
Speaker 1: even though I didn't see it as Slation's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, who's this one? Yeah, Like I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I just saw a theme of Okay, everyd Ohio player's
Speaker 1: album cover looks like black playboy. My sister. My sister
Speaker 1: at that time, blending in with her middle school friends
Speaker 1: and eventually her high school friends, you kind of sort
Speaker 1: of have to adapt to their taste. She's bringing home
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody, She's bringing home Bowie, She's bringing home fal Cat.
Speaker 1: Like my dad and my sister have very similar tastes.
Speaker 1: My sister is like one of the biggest yacht rock fans.
Speaker 1: I know, Rupert Holmes, Ambrosia, like all that soft the
Speaker 1: Captain ands Neil, all that stuff. And the main role
Speaker 1: in the household was don't touch my stereo. So I'm
Speaker 1: not allowed to choose what I want to hear, so
Speaker 1: I have to be forced to listen to what they
Speaker 1: want to hear. You were held hostage by yacht rock
Speaker 1: as a child, I mean, you know, I think from
Speaker 1: the age of three till about nine, you just take
Speaker 1: in everything that they give you. So I mean I
Speaker 1: pretty much had an adults knowledge of music by the
Speaker 1: time I was ten years old. Like I was reading
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone. I often talk about seeing the Prince Dirty
Speaker 1: Mind lead review, the Yoko cover story of Rolling Stone,
Speaker 1: her first interview after John was assassinating, and I knew
Speaker 1: it was a big deal even at the age of nine,
Speaker 1: that Prince got a four and a half star lead
Speaker 1: review and Rolling Stone, because in my head, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: white people don't know this guy, Like, how do he
Speaker 1: get the lead review on the artwork and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and reading the how glowing it was, I was just like,
Speaker 1: this is a big deal. So I really had an
Speaker 1: adults vocabulary with music by the time I was ten.
Speaker 1: Do you have any memories of records of like specific events,
Speaker 1: like the time that you the first time you saw
Speaker 1: so and so I could. I have a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: but I want to ask you first of yeah, oh man,
Speaker 1: the day that Songs in the Key of Life came out,
Speaker 1: that that could have been a national holiday. I mean,
Speaker 1: the world stopped. It was like war the worlds. We
Speaker 1: brought the record and like the entire family even like
Speaker 1: I'm coming over and listened to it, Like my mom's
Speaker 1: sister came to the house and we're just sitting there
Speaker 1: listening to this record. Now again, I'm six years old,
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm not understanding anything about Stevie Wonder's
Speaker 1: genius period and the fact that you know, from seventy one,
Speaker 1: you know that the streak was happening, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know Malcolm Murciso like his producers and none of those
Speaker 1: guys were But I just remember like how they treated
Speaker 1: that album as an event and there was a booklet
Speaker 1: inside it, and these fonts are really weird and is
Speaker 1: he drowning in donuts? And just everything about that album
Speaker 1: was like an event. So I mean, did any one
Speaker 1: of the did you appreciate it as an album? Or
Speaker 1: do certain songs even today kind of stand up really
Speaker 1: because of Stevie Wonder, I'm not an album guy, and
Speaker 1: I feel so ashamed to say them front of you, Rick,
Speaker 1: because I know that you create great singles. I'm just
Speaker 1: now realizing as a DJ now, and I mean, like
Speaker 1: in the last three to four years, like, oh man,
Speaker 1: the single does matter. I'm suddenly seeing be what I
Speaker 1: should have known thirty years ago when I first started.
Speaker 1: But I've just seen albums as peaks and valleys and statements.
Speaker 1: And you know, for me, it was I always felt
Speaker 1: as that, as though, any how my creates should be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well he starts off with a slow song here, and
Speaker 1: he slowly rises here, and then the jazz fusing songs
Speaker 1: number four, and then the high end songs are here,
Speaker 1: and then he a little bit here and side threes
Speaker 1: a little slow, and then the breathless race of the
Speaker 1: finish at the end. So I always took it as
Speaker 1: complete statements, which is why I'm one of the few
Speaker 1: people that I was elated with Journey through the Secret
Speaker 1: Life of Plants, which everybody included my dad. Once that
Speaker 1: came out, He's like, I'm not buying me. He stopped
Speaker 1: record binging after Journey through the Secret Life of Plants
Speaker 1: because yeah, but for me, that was my dark side
Speaker 1: of the moon. That was my put headphones on, close
Speaker 1: your eyes and imagine, like what's happening and you hear
Speaker 1: all this panned noise and everything. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: about pop hits or you know, why is it all instrumental?
Speaker 1: That sort of thing, Like, what's your version of that
Speaker 1: kind of event album from your childhood? Is there one?
Speaker 1: Do you have a version of the of Sons in
Speaker 1: the Cave Life? Well, I can remember that particular album.
Speaker 1: I can remember getting that album and Chuck Mangioni at
Speaker 1: the same time, so they must have come out in
Speaker 1: the same year, I imagine. And I remember I had
Speaker 1: a little keyboard although I couldn't really play anything, and
Speaker 1: trying to play along all the different parts on the record,
Speaker 1: just on the keyboard, just try to have some understanding
Speaker 1: of what was going on. I can remember the first
Speaker 1: time I was in a record store and I saw, Now,
Speaker 1: this is sort of it's late for this because the
Speaker 1: record came out much earlier. But I remember finding the
Speaker 1: MC five and first seeing that first album cover and
Speaker 1: then listening to it and thinking, well, this is during
Speaker 1: punk rock times, like, wow, this is it's kind of
Speaker 1: like punk rock, but it's old, but it has that energy.
Speaker 1: It has like a frantic energy, and that really excited me.
Speaker 1: And that I can remember, Okay, is there anyone else
Speaker 1: like the MC five. It's like, well, it's not exactly
Speaker 1: like them, but then it leads you to Iggy and
Speaker 1: the Stooges, and I can just remember these moments of
Speaker 1: revelation of hearing a new I can remember the first
Speaker 1: time I heard their Moones and just didn't have any
Speaker 1: point of reference for it. I have a slight confessor
Speaker 1: to make. Yeah, I hate to say this. I finally
Speaker 1: listened to the entire Ramones album start to finish eight
Speaker 1: days ago, and I'm so mad that it took me
Speaker 1: so long to do it. What led you to do it? Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the lamest thing ever. So I'm kind of
Speaker 1: at a creative fork in the road right now. As
Speaker 1: far as DJing is concerned, because a lot of the
Speaker 1: collective music I play feels to a specific audience, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out more creative ways to bring
Speaker 1: them out because of course, like you know, the people
Speaker 1: that like the music that I like are older, they
Speaker 1: have kids. They're not coming out at two three in
Speaker 1: the morning. I'll say. In the last year or so,
Speaker 1: I've been doing Saturday afternoon Djay Sunday afternoon DJing so
Speaker 1: that it's family friendly. Parents can come and relive their
Speaker 1: club days and the kids can have It's it's my
Speaker 1: version of re hip hop, because hip hop's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a community based afternoon sort of thing, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And I did uh an ice skating rink.
Speaker 1: I knew it was going to be a lot of
Speaker 1: kids there, and I was like, all right, well, let
Speaker 1: me make sure that I'm playing kid friendly stuff whatnot,
Speaker 1: and not just happened to just look on the internet.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, adult music that kids seem
Speaker 1: to like as well. And of course briskly I can't
Speaker 1: pronounce it, risking bop was listed and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they always sing that at sports at sports events,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have it, so I downloaded it and
Speaker 1: I saw that, oh, all the songs are under two
Speaker 1: minutes and thirty seconds. Two minutes and thirty seconds. And
Speaker 1: as a songwriter, as I spoke to you before, like
Speaker 1: not focusing on singles, I'm now obsessed with people that
Speaker 1: have had successful singles under three minutes, because it's one
Speaker 1: thing to do these well thought out, you know, introspective,
Speaker 1: eleven minute free jazz stuff. And the roots are such artists,
Speaker 1: but it's like, can we do judy as a punk?
Speaker 1: Can we make an effective song with bare minimum in
Speaker 1: three minutes? Can we be just as effective? So now
Speaker 1: I'm trying to study minimalist effectiveness. So it's like as
Speaker 1: a writer, it's why I'm obsessed with commercials. Always been
Speaker 1: obsessed with commercials because they tell a story in thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: you know, And if you are a writer and you
Speaker 1: know how hard it is tell a story, you're you
Speaker 1: put the person who writes to brilliant commercial at the
Speaker 1: top of the list. The only reason why I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with this is because now that I work at the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show, we have to write eight second jingles, of
Speaker 1: which you have to have narrative of what the title is.
Speaker 1: Writing eight second songs is sort of our version of commercials.
Speaker 1: So how often this is a question for both you
Speaker 1: as producers, how often do you say to the artist
Speaker 1: you're working with, make it shorter. I never do, unless
Speaker 1: unless it's boring. It's like it's really every piece has
Speaker 1: the length that it wants to be. I have a
Speaker 1: question for you. Yeah, okay, so fight for your right
Speaker 1: to party. Yeah, I'll say the last four years. I
Speaker 1: read the original demo version with extra verses in it,
Speaker 1: and YadA, YadA, YadA. So I'm asking this mainly because
Speaker 1: I just read the Beastie Boy book. So in your head,
Speaker 1: how did you have that much discipline to know what
Speaker 1: to reduce? Like, you're famous for reducing stuff, taking taking
Speaker 1: elements away. So honestly, in that case, I don't remember
Speaker 1: it ever being longer than that. Well, there's like an
Speaker 1: extra verse in there that was taken away, So I
Speaker 1: wonder I'd love to hear it, because I have no
Speaker 1: recollection of it ever being longer. In those days, it
Speaker 1: would be unusual for us to shorten anything. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you weren't thinking like, okay, three minutes and
Speaker 1: thirty seconds. Ever in my life have I thought that?
Speaker 1: So you don't have Clive Davis ears and not in
Speaker 1: the least I'm I'm but you're so bullseye with it.
Speaker 1: Like it has to do with growing up where I
Speaker 1: grew up and listening to the Beatles. So the first
Speaker 1: formative music for me was the Beatles, and those were
Speaker 1: short pop songs. So I had that formula of goodness
Speaker 1: in me from the time I was a little kid.
Speaker 1: That was just all I knew that was good. And
Speaker 1: when I would hear something that felt like anytime, it
Speaker 1: felt like it got boring to me, right, it was
Speaker 1: too long, but some you know, I like ten minute
Speaker 1: jams too well. I mean, one of my favorite groups
Speaker 1: is Trouble Funk, and if you listen to their music,
Speaker 1: it just goes forever. Right, He's being seriously modest right now,
Speaker 1: but like he literally the most revolutionary thing that he
Speaker 1: brought to the world of hip hop was he literally
Speaker 1: invented the three minute song. Like before him, even a
Speaker 1: song as as sticky and friendly as the message like
Speaker 1: grand Master Flast and that was still eight minutes Planet
Speaker 1: rock because you're thinking of the club and keeping the
Speaker 1: groove lasting a long time. That sort of thing ll
Speaker 1: like when we got Ello's record, Yo, these songs are
Speaker 1: four minutes long, Like we never even fathom that you
Speaker 1: could have an effect of hip hop record or song
Speaker 1: to be three minutes and fifty seconds. Like just seeing
Speaker 1: those times on the Deft dam thing, I was just like,
Speaker 1: this is weird, what's going on here? But to you,
Speaker 1: that was just anyone else. It was just based on
Speaker 1: growing up with the Beatles. That was it. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was not at all premeditated in any way. It
Speaker 1: was natural to me. And when I would get you know,
Speaker 1: I collected twelve inch twelve inch vinyl at that time,
Speaker 1: because every hip hop record came out twelve inch pretty much.
Speaker 1: That was the main format of the day. So I
Speaker 1: would get these, you know, Jimmy Spicer records that were
Speaker 1: nine minutes long, and it would be or twelve minutes long,
Speaker 1: and it always seemed like they weren't made to listen to,
Speaker 1: they were made to dance to. They weren't. They weren't
Speaker 1: long in service to the song, right, And I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to work in service to the song, whatever that is.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's the whole side of an album. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's three minutes, but usually just take someone so long
Speaker 1: to learn that lesson. And I think it just has
Speaker 1: to do with where you started listening to Farrow Sanders
Speaker 1: and longer, more experimental pieces. I started listening to the Beatles,
Speaker 1: but again before I knew what I was listening to,
Speaker 1: just what I gravitated towards the Beatles and the Monkeys
Speaker 1: when I was a little teeny kid. No, I'll admit that,
Speaker 1: or selfishly or whatever, like I was definitely creating stuff
Speaker 1: that teenage me would want to. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: a pop hook was or none of that stuff until
Speaker 1: you know, even when we got our first real hit
Speaker 1: four albums, and there was fear that I might ruin
Speaker 1: it because I wanted to show our drum end bassed
Speaker 1: London influence, and it became a thing of like, yo,
Speaker 1: it's just too radical for the song, like, well, this
Speaker 1: ruin it. But even then my answer was like, we're
Speaker 1: not a pop group, so it doesn't matter, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we're never ever going to get on the radio in
Speaker 1: this lifetime, so let's just do it. And then it
Speaker 1: backfired and worked. But even then I didn't know why
Speaker 1: the song worked and the elements that made it work
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I started DJing. Like, if you look
Speaker 1: throughout history, every great producer has done a lot of
Speaker 1: hours djaying somewhere. Rick has done it, Jimmy Jam, Doctor
Speaker 1: Dre had hissed it suation. The reason why he's so
Speaker 1: good is because if you played the wrong song, the
Speaker 1: club might get shot up. So imagine djaying under those
Speaker 1: tense conditions. So it's almost like you have to have
Speaker 1: a winner out of the game. It's a hip hop
Speaker 1: version of that famous statement, the prospect of a hanging
Speaker 1: in the morning concentrates the mind wonderfully. This case is
Speaker 1: the prospect of a shooting in the club. Yes, concentrates
Speaker 1: the djaying wonderfully. Yeah, well can you? This is the
Speaker 1: other thing that I've always been obsessed with, and that
Speaker 1: is that when you get immersed, as the two of
Speaker 1: you are in music, what happens when you listen to
Speaker 1: music that's not your own? Can you turn the critic
Speaker 1: off and appreciate it with your without passing judgment, or
Speaker 1: are you actually producing the song in your head as
Speaker 1: you listen? Who first? I can do that with records,
Speaker 1: I can't do that with concerts. In concerts, I become
Speaker 1: the same man, God, they got to turn the high
Speaker 1: head up. Sometimes at actual shows, I'll run back to
Speaker 1: the guy, no, the sound guy. Oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: such a fan. Good you start up to high at more,
Speaker 1: just say a little bit and then run Like I
Speaker 1: micromanage many a concert records. I do that with Prince
Speaker 1: a lot. I'll say that with Prince. I'll do that.
Speaker 1: You'll do what was critiqued as you listen. I'm harder
Speaker 1: on him than I am on anyone else well, because
Speaker 1: it's like Prince is my DNA, and I've always felt
Speaker 1: as though it's usually when you upgrade your situation, like
Speaker 1: if you the artist that I like, Uh, let's take
Speaker 1: Risen from Wu Tang. People will speak with great reverence
Speaker 1: of the first five Wu Tang projects from Enter the
Speaker 1: thirty six Chambers up until let's say, uh, iron Man
Speaker 1: the ghost Face album. And that's because they had limited
Speaker 1: resources inside of his apartment in Staten Island. But it's
Speaker 1: like once they upgrade it to that plus studio in
Speaker 1: La for Wu Tak forever, that's when they started beeting
Speaker 1: a difference from the fan base with Prince. The same
Speaker 1: thing when he was in his bedroom with like very
Speaker 1: limited equipment. That's where like the most creative shit ever happened.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, I'll allow a pass for
Speaker 1: the record plant as well. He was in that zone there,
Speaker 1: but once he got to Paisley Park, then I started noticing, like, ah, man,
Speaker 1: I bet you he used like sure fifty seven microphones
Speaker 1: on the drums and used an SSL board and then
Speaker 1: I just started like dissecting machine and the cleanness of
Speaker 1: it all. And you know, it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: separate that. I occasionally do that with Stevie Wonder as well.
Speaker 1: I do it with everything pretty much anything I hear.
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking, oh, I wish it was more like this,
Speaker 1: or like like I just imagine it sounding different, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to turn off the producer brain. It's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I really like listening to classical music
Speaker 1: and jazz, because I don't have that same feeling listening
Speaker 1: to that music, but listening to hip hop or listening
Speaker 1: to rock music, or more often than not, I'm producing
Speaker 1: in my head. There's one example which would be fun
Speaker 1: to talk about because you're involved, is the D'Angelo Voodoo
Speaker 1: album to me, is absolutely perfect. It's the first time
Speaker 1: I can remember listening through to an album wishing I
Speaker 1: had something to do with it because it was so good.
Speaker 1: It was just like, oh my god, this is everything
Speaker 1: I want an album to be, and it was unlike
Speaker 1: anything I'd ever heard before. Such a scary time period, man,
Speaker 1: because Virgin wasn't seeing it that way. Oh man, there
Speaker 1: you know, there was a lot of Okay, when will
Speaker 1: you guys actually start the real record now and stop
Speaker 1: messing around. We're looking at each other like, this is
Speaker 1: the record we tell us how you got involved with
Speaker 1: D'Angelo and that elf. I met di'angelo and Eric Abadu
Speaker 1: coincidentally on April Fools nineteen ninety six, I'm on tour
Speaker 1: with the Fujis and the Goodie Mob. It is the
Speaker 1: sole Trade Awards weekend. One year before the Biggie tragedy.
Speaker 1: The Fujis were just beginning there Crest into the Stars
Speaker 1: with the Score album. So there was a lot of
Speaker 1: playful sort of tension between the two groups. You know,
Speaker 1: by this point, the Roots become like such a well
Speaker 1: oiled machine live and like, Okay, we gotta kick their
Speaker 1: ass tonight. We're in La we gotta do it. And
Speaker 1: I remember getting on my drum set and seeing I
Speaker 1: didn't know who Erica was, I'd assume at the time
Speaker 1: that was his girlfriend. You know, she had the tall
Speaker 1: head wrap onorn. But I knew D'Angelo silhouette because he
Speaker 1: was like front. I could see his silhouette front and
Speaker 1: center behind the lights. And I remembered that I dismissively
Speaker 1: talked myself out of playing on Brown Sugar, his previous album,
Speaker 1: because at the time I was just like soul singers
Speaker 1: in the nineties, whatever, I'm not doing this, you know,
Speaker 1: R and B guys like nothing about sol singing had
Speaker 1: moved me from any nineties offering the same way that
Speaker 1: it did when Otis writing and Stevie Wonder Lou Rawl's
Speaker 1: like soul music. They were like, yeah, he wants you
Speaker 1: to drum on this record, and I looked at him
Speaker 1: like I'll pass. And then I got Brown Sugar and
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, this guy could be the one.
Speaker 1: And so I've been trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get back in his good graces so I can be
Speaker 1: there for round two. Now. The thing is is that
Speaker 1: because of this rivalry thing we have with the Fujis,
Speaker 1: the show was a certain way. But when I saw DiAngelo.
Speaker 1: I decided to call an audible and basically have have
Speaker 1: a conversation with Jess him, which meant that I was
Speaker 1: now about to throw my entire band off, because what
Speaker 1: I would normally do for a particular intro of a song,
Speaker 1: I'm now saying, all right, I'm gonna do this very
Speaker 1: obscure prince drum roll and see if he gets it.
Speaker 1: So I'm doing the Prince drum roll instead, and my
Speaker 1: band's looking at me like what are you doing. You're
Speaker 1: just trying to impress the age, right, but they didn't
Speaker 1: get that, you know, and I'm just calling this song
Speaker 1: like so they're they're looking at me like you're thwarting
Speaker 1: and throwing off the entire show. But the only person
Speaker 1: that mattered to me in the room that night was
Speaker 1: and when he heard that intro, he stood at attention.
Speaker 1: It was like yo. And when I seen that, I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I got you, motherfucker. And then and
Speaker 1: then like that whole show was the first time that
Speaker 1: the drumming I'm doing for now started to come to life.
Speaker 1: And again throwing my band off, like why are you
Speaker 1: playing like a like a drunk three year old, like
Speaker 1: why are you playing off rhythm, why are you? And
Speaker 1: the thing was I had to put the bait on
Speaker 1: the hook and throw it out there, and once he
Speaker 1: grabbed it, I was like, nope, not leg but like
Speaker 1: this is how I'm and a drum from now on.
Speaker 1: So he got it. They were mad as hell at
Speaker 1: me that night, but he got it, and you know,
Speaker 1: I felt good because then all the Fuji's records skipped,
Speaker 1: so they had a bad performance that night, so we won.
Speaker 1: But yeah, after that, then he knew that was the
Speaker 1: African communication thing, like I had to use my drum
Speaker 1: to tell him, okay, we speak the same language. And
Speaker 1: he came to Philly to do a song on her album.
Speaker 1: It was the last day of recording and we had
Speaker 1: like seven hours left, so we just continued to play
Speaker 1: and then it was like, well, come by next week,
Speaker 1: come by next week. And then the fourth time I'm
Speaker 1: at Electric Lady Studios for what will be a five
Speaker 1: year tutorial and education and probably one of the greatest
Speaker 1: creative periods of my that was my becoming an adult.
Speaker 1: Just every day like I was YouTube because I was
Speaker 1: still doing these mammoth grateful dead like tours with the Roots,
Speaker 1: spending all my off days at Electric Lady with him,
Speaker 1: but mostly traveling the world, collecting any and every videotape
Speaker 1: performance of some vintage Al Green and nineteen seventy four
Speaker 1: and Graham Central Station in nineteen seventy six, and bringing
Speaker 1: it back to Electric Lady so we could study it.
Speaker 1: And then after we watch it like two or three times,
Speaker 1: then we come and then play what we just watched,
Speaker 1: and after four hours of messing around, suddenly he'll change
Speaker 1: the key and I'll say, hey, what you doing now, No,
Speaker 1: keep on playing the rhythm justin and then suddenly the
Speaker 1: morphing of a new song starts. And that's pretty much
Speaker 1: why Voodoo took five years to make those twelve songs,
Speaker 1: because that was the slow, arduous process of digging and
Speaker 1: digging and morphing and digging and morphing and coming up
Speaker 1: with We had a similar experience with the first Beastie
Speaker 1: Boys album, which took I think three years to make,
Speaker 1: and it was the same reason. It was like it
Speaker 1: wasn't yeah, It was just like looking for these inspirational
Speaker 1: jumping off points and then messing with those in the
Speaker 1: studio to make it an interesting track, and then we
Speaker 1: would write to it. But but that would happen. It
Speaker 1: happened over a long period of I can remember I
Speaker 1: might have told you this story before, Malcolm, but I
Speaker 1: can remember being at a different session and Mike d
Speaker 1: calling me really upsets, like, how come our album's not
Speaker 1: done yet. It's like, you can't rush it. It's like,
Speaker 1: you can't, it's not it's not right. It comes when
Speaker 1: it comes, you know, it's not a it's not automatic.
Speaker 1: So it reminds me of that experience of that sort
Speaker 1: of what's the jam session process like for that time period.
Speaker 1: Who's the person that's like, hey, let's program something, you know,
Speaker 1: this particular way and backwards masket or even like the
Speaker 1: starts and stops in like the new style or just okay,
Speaker 1: that's another life changing album for me, by the way,
Speaker 1: Licensed to Ill life changing, the world stopping, life changing.
Speaker 1: So but it was done with the same sort of
Speaker 1: precision you're talking about. And then it would have been
Speaker 1: more often than not, it would have just been me
Speaker 1: and an engineer in the room working on the music
Speaker 1: for a long time until I had something that was
Speaker 1: exciting enough to even feel comfortable playing for the band,
Speaker 1: you know, like it had to the music really had
Speaker 1: to be right first, and so many of the drops
Speaker 1: and things, it was all rooted in the vocals. So
Speaker 1: we would first there would be the the basic track,
Speaker 1: which would be either samples or it was really loops
Speaker 1: then because there was no sampler yet, so it was
Speaker 1: either loops or direct djaying in parts program drums. I
Speaker 1: would play rudimentary like guitar stuff if it needed to
Speaker 1: be there, and we would get the tracks to that point.
Speaker 1: Then we would usually write the words which would happen
Speaker 1: over a while, and we were always collecting lyrics, Like
Speaker 1: me and Adam Harvitz would go out to danceteria pretty
Speaker 1: much every night and just goof around and try to
Speaker 1: make each other laugh, and if the other person laughed,
Speaker 1: it was usually a usable line. And just always like
Speaker 1: little tiny pieces of paper with scribbled notes on them,
Speaker 1: and that was like a comedian. C very much was
Speaker 1: like that, and it was I would say that we
Speaker 1: were as inspired by Monty Python and Steve Martin as
Speaker 1: we were by anybody doing music. It really was about
Speaker 1: inside jokes and making each other the laugh wow, and
Speaker 1: then the things, the drops you talk about, would happen.
Speaker 1: After the vocals were done. We would all of us
Speaker 1: line up at the console and everybody was before automation,
Speaker 1: or at least before automation for us, and we would
Speaker 1: each man a section of the console and then we
Speaker 1: would play it and do different drops and experiment and like,
Speaker 1: and you'd learn the song almost like learning musical parts, wow,
Speaker 1: so that you could do the same drop every time.
Speaker 1: And we would try to get through the whole song
Speaker 1: with five people standing at the desk doing muting or rides,
Speaker 1: and just like live automation. That was pretty much how
Speaker 1: we made all all those that also run DMC as well.
Speaker 1: At that time. We'll be back with more from Questlove
Speaker 1: after this break. We're back with more Questlove. Wait, I
Speaker 1: hate to jack your podcast. I have one more fan
Speaker 1: question to ask him. Please, no, no, this is what
Speaker 1: we want you to do. I don't think you you
Speaker 1: don't get enough accolades for going back to Cali. But
Speaker 1: what I specifically want to know is the scratching on
Speaker 1: going back to Cali is probably the loudest example of
Speaker 1: scratching loud, as in could skip your record if your
Speaker 1: needle is weak loud. Yes, why you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember, not remember so long ago whatever,
Speaker 1: But what was the logic behind that it was such
Speaker 1: a game changer for not a major single for or
Speaker 1: a fan favorite of LLS, but it was such a
Speaker 1: major production. The boom of the eight oh eight and
Speaker 1: the loudness of the scratching was unusual. What made you
Speaker 1: do that? It was just it was just trying to
Speaker 1: push the limits of what was exciting about the Music's
Speaker 1: like how can we make the eight to oh eight bigger?
Speaker 1: How can we? You know? And the scratching was also
Speaker 1: like almost I never really thought about this for but
Speaker 1: it does sort of relate to voodoo and how it's
Speaker 1: kind of sounds almost slowed down, you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that like that's more speaking to my inability as
Speaker 1: to DJ than necessarily a real choice. You know, I've
Speaker 1: I've always loved it, but I mean the engineers that
Speaker 1: house engineers ever try to talk you out of things,
Speaker 1: Like I've done a lot of things where it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't do that, and you'll upset the system and
Speaker 1: the record will skip it. Yes, from from the very
Speaker 1: first from my punk rock band recording, I can remember
Speaker 1: everything that I wanted to do, the studio telling me
Speaker 1: you can't do that, and we did it anywhere any
Speaker 1: when it sounded really good to us, even though you
Speaker 1: know it was a mess, right, okay, it was really Again,
Speaker 1: it's not about for me, it's never been about doing
Speaker 1: it right. It's always about I'm just trying to feel something.
Speaker 1: I'm playing with it until I feel it. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it's more interesting when it's not smooth or I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's interesting when it's when something's really wrong, like
Speaker 1: if a vocal's really too loud, can be interesting sometimes.
Speaker 1: In the case of the D'Angelo record, I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that this guy is such a great
Speaker 1: singer with such a beautiful voice, and the vocals are
Speaker 1: so understated and quiet, almost like it was an afterthought,
Speaker 1: and it was brilliant. It was like it was It
Speaker 1: was the opposite of what you'd expect from the greatest
Speaker 1: soul singer of his day. It just went the other way, right. Wow.
Speaker 1: My question for two of you is, when you're doing
Speaker 1: these records set in retrospect become iconic, when do you
Speaker 1: realize they're iconic. I read a Pitchfork Perfect ten review
Speaker 1: of Voodoo, of which they dissected it and analyzed it
Speaker 1: and painted in such a different light that I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that, oh, oh god, this IE's about to get
Speaker 1: like a second round of accolades because suddenly, like the
Speaker 1: hipster community is discovering it. And then you know, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, cats from Animal collect cats from Dirty Projectors,
Speaker 1: and then like all these groups they're coming up to me,
Speaker 1: like yo, man. Voodoo came out when I was eleven,
Speaker 1: and Da Da Da and I hit a d like, yo, dude,
Speaker 1: white hipster Brooklyn bands really like Voodoo. This is crazy.
Speaker 1: And the thing was, it was like when we were
Speaker 1: first done and I have my copy of it, like
Speaker 1: before the world had it. My assistant at the time
Speaker 1: was like, ugh, this sounds horrible. I was at a
Speaker 1: restaurant and I was like, yo, I got the new
Speaker 1: D'Angelo and they gave it back to me by like
Speaker 1: song two. Ah. Man. It was just like I was
Speaker 1: so scared of because I felt like, oh man, I'm
Speaker 1: the co pilot and I ruined a marquee star of
Speaker 1: another label, Like they're really going to kill me for this.
Speaker 1: So I didn't feel that the first go round, and
Speaker 1: it really wasn't until ten years later, once the reissue
Speaker 1: came out, and once I started hearing other people's views
Speaker 1: of it that I realized like, oh, okay, maybe we
Speaker 1: did make art. Like he still refuses to believe. Not
Speaker 1: that he's just mind blown, but you know, he's not
Speaker 1: on the internet every day and that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: so he still doesn't have an ankling of a clue
Speaker 1: that he created a master work. He still doesn't know.
Speaker 1: He'll be mind blown that I'm gonna tell him, Like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I talked to Rick Ruve and he really loves Voodoo
Speaker 1: Get out here, man. You say that like that's that's
Speaker 1: gonna be his reaction, not like really loves it like
Speaker 1: in the greatest of all time, Like it's it's a
Speaker 1: short list and it's right there. Hey, you're preaching to
Speaker 1: the requirement grit. Did you think that way the very
Speaker 1: first time you heard it? Or did you absolutely something absolutely?
Speaker 1: It just took me by surprise. I can't say I
Speaker 1: wasn't a fan of the album before that. I just
Speaker 1: didn't really listen to the album before that. This album
Speaker 1: caught me right from the beginning, and it just right
Speaker 1: away it didn't sound like anything else. So the same
Speaker 1: thing that alienated the people who didn't like it was
Speaker 1: what drew me to it is that I'm listening to
Speaker 1: something I don't have a point of reference for, and
Speaker 1: that's really exciting, and I look for those experiences and
Speaker 1: it was a great It was a great version of
Speaker 1: it too. It's not it wasn't weird for the sake
Speaker 1: of being weird. It wasn't different to show, oh we
Speaker 1: could do something different. It was different because it was
Speaker 1: cool as fuck to be different. Do you do you
Speaker 1: remember me when you're talking about the process of putting
Speaker 1: that album together and you said you were bringing back
Speaker 1: bits and pieces from your travels and wanderings and things.
Speaker 1: Do you remember some examples of those Back then? It
Speaker 1: was again, I was YouTube. The first time I went
Speaker 1: to Japan, I spent all my money in sort of
Speaker 1: the video district. So I came back. I went to
Speaker 1: Japan with one Kipling bag of my clothes. I came
Speaker 1: home from Japan with four Kipling bags and three of
Speaker 1: them all VHS cassettes. I mean, that's the first time
Speaker 1: I saw Soul Train in twenty years. So when we
Speaker 1: were studying all the Algreen performances on Soul Train in
Speaker 1: on a midnight special, we noticed that al Green always
Speaker 1: had a trick. The trick was, you know, he'd always
Speaker 1: tells band he gave a signal which instantly brought the
Speaker 1: band down to a whisper, and we thought that was
Speaker 1: the most exciting part of That's the exciting part of it.
Speaker 1: That's when the women starts screaming or whatever. So we
Speaker 1: were just taking bits and pieces of like, okay, so
Speaker 1: when we do this record in concert, do you do
Speaker 1: then we're all going to take it down to a whisper.
Speaker 1: So we were just taking notes from any and everything
Speaker 1: that we saw. Band dynamics with Al Green, band cues
Speaker 1: from Prince who's notorious for this means that in the
Speaker 1: back means that, and the hip means that, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Every James Brown clip, I mean, I came
Speaker 1: back with over fifty hours of and then at some
Speaker 1: point it just became like Electrical Lady just became the
Speaker 1: hangout spot to watch these things. So suddenly, like other
Speaker 1: artists are coming in and watching and watching and watching
Speaker 1: with us and watching with us, and of course like
Speaker 1: virgins like what do you mean they're not in the studio, Huh,
Speaker 1: they're doing what They're still in the breakroom watching TV
Speaker 1: like that sort of thing. But we had to refuel ourselves.
Speaker 1: So we get there four in the afternoon. We wouldn't
Speaker 1: start a note until maybe eleven o'clock at night because
Speaker 1: we had to fuel up and watch these performances over
Speaker 1: and over and over again and talk about it and
Speaker 1: then go in there and recreate it and then morph
Speaker 1: it into what we feel it into our thing. And
Speaker 1: this went on for years, went on for five years
Speaker 1: between ninety six and ninety eight, a core of the
Speaker 1: music was done and then I mean he's very meticulous
Speaker 1: with the vocal process, so all of late ninety seven,
Speaker 1: ninety eight, ninety nine was just all vocal. We never
Speaker 1: thought this album would be finished. I mean his follow
Speaker 1: up record of fifteen years. So that's to give you.
Speaker 1: That has to give you perspective if you had a
Speaker 1: moment in your similar period in your career where there
Speaker 1: was that level of intensity and absorption with one artist. Well,
Speaker 1: more like what he's saying, there have been times where
Speaker 1: an album is taking a long period of time and
Speaker 1: during that process we work on a lot of other things.
Speaker 1: And that goes back to like that first Beastie Boys
Speaker 1: album and BRN DMC's Raising Hell and Hello Cool Jay.
Speaker 1: Those things were all happening, often overlapping, and it's happened
Speaker 1: many times since then. Where I'd be doing pre production
Speaker 1: on a Chili Peppers album while finishing a Tom Petty
Speaker 1: album would be really normal to be happening. When we
Speaker 1: come back, Questlov breaks down the production on Michael Jackson's
Speaker 1: Off the Wall. After this break, stay tuned, we're back
Speaker 1: with more of our conversation from Questlove. The way you're
Speaker 1: describing this process is so profoundly different from the life
Speaker 1: of a writer that I have to ask these questions.
Speaker 1: Is it not extraordinarily stressful and anxiety producing to have
Speaker 1: a project stretch on and on and on for that
Speaker 1: length of time And I'm assuming you're getting an angry
Speaker 1: phone call every two days from the studio? Is this
Speaker 1: not true? Someone has to pay for all of this.
Speaker 1: During that period, budgets just were limitless, at least for
Speaker 1: my particular situation. The clients that I used just they
Speaker 1: knew what they were getting. I mean, we just got
Speaker 1: lucky that these albums went platinum or whatever. But these
Speaker 1: were like art records for what was commercial at the time.
Speaker 1: We were the opposite of that. No one. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, the good folks that Virgin Records would have
Speaker 1: loved for Voodoo to come out in ninety seven, ninety
Speaker 1: eight or whatever, But I mean it came out in
Speaker 1: the time that it was supposed to. I've never had that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were a label as well, So did
Speaker 1: you ever have those? You know, Okay, I gotta put
Speaker 1: my cap on and be the label CEO and never no,
Speaker 1: my I always thought that my job in the label
Speaker 1: was knowing that the music was the most important thing.
Speaker 1: And as long as we're working on making the best
Speaker 1: thing we can make, there's no better gift you can
Speaker 1: give to a label than an album that's going to
Speaker 1: be meaningful. And whether that's a year later, we don't
Speaker 1: have a chance to redo these things. So it's like
Speaker 1: when we feel like we're making something forever, a statement forever,
Speaker 1: you really want to get it to at least the
Speaker 1: best that you can in that moment in time. You know,
Speaker 1: you may listen back to your work from twenty years
Speaker 1: ago and think, oh, I would do that differently today.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean better or worse, but just the work
Speaker 1: is a little bit like a diary, and that it's
Speaker 1: a reflection of where you are in that moment, and
Speaker 1: that's the best of your taste in that moment. I
Speaker 1: mean for me, it's I say like it's done when
Speaker 1: I get goosebumps, and when each song gives me goosebumps
Speaker 1: and it matches my I'll do like a vision board,
Speaker 1: if you will, inside of my notebook. PET. So usually
Speaker 1: when I start a record, I start off with a
Speaker 1: blank slate and there's twelve spots. In my mind, I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: side one is four songs, and side two is five songs,
Speaker 1: and side three is four songs, and side four is
Speaker 1: four songs. And as we're creating this stuff, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of going back to that songs in the Key of
Speaker 1: Life event listening living room moment that wore the worlds
Speaker 1: looking at the stereo moment. As each song is created
Speaker 1: and I start placing, like, okay, I would put this
Speaker 1: third song on side two, I would put this. So
Speaker 1: when I I create stuff, I guess I'm in the
Speaker 1: mind state of us listening to songs in the KIV life,
Speaker 1: analyzing the order of the songs and those things. And
Speaker 1: once I place or have places for those blank spots
Speaker 1: and that's done, then I feel like, Okay, the mixes
Speaker 1: have to give you goosebumps and whatnot, and then I
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, we've reached satisfaction and this is its
Speaker 1: songs in the Cave Life, by the way an album.
Speaker 1: Do you feel about that album the way Rick feels
Speaker 1: about Voodoo? Is it beyond approach for you? You know what,
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder Michael Jackson are the two artists in whom,
Speaker 1: whenever I'm asked to do these like your top twen
Speaker 1: albums at all time whatever, I consider them more events.
Speaker 1: Like It's like Thrilling Off the Wall will never wind
Speaker 1: up on the top ten all time list that I
Speaker 1: ever compile, because a borderline think of Thriller as a
Speaker 1: social experiment more than I do great collection of nine
Speaker 1: depressing songs. I mean, but you know what's interesting, Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson's Off the Wall, and I think I've an idea
Speaker 1: of how Quincy Jones operates as a producer, because what
Speaker 1: I'm noticing is, first of all, each song has somewhere
Speaker 1: between a minimum of forty tracks, sometimes to sixty eight,
Speaker 1: so it's almost like three tape machines. But what I
Speaker 1: notice is that for each song, my guess is that
Speaker 1: Quincy used what I'll say is a ropodope approach with Michael,
Speaker 1: which was, Okay, give me all your ideas, give me
Speaker 1: all the ideas he got, give me all the ideas
Speaker 1: he got. Literally every song on Off the Wall, which
Speaker 1: we sort of note as a instant classic, is one
Speaker 1: minuscule step away from becoming like the worst dated disco
Speaker 1: album of all time, because literally on each song there's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll do the disco kanda, you know, track of the
Speaker 1: day on like work at day and night that would
Speaker 1: have killed the song. You hear like like disco calls.
Speaker 1: You hear way too many verses. You hear like weird synth,
Speaker 1: oh God, burn this disco out. The last song that
Speaker 1: closes the there's like some weird fire effects and synthesizer
Speaker 1: patches not needed. So basically it's I figured he let
Speaker 1: everything out, every idea out, and then Michael trusted him
Speaker 1: enough to pull Rick Ruben, which has reduced it all Right,
Speaker 1: we don't need this, we don't need this, we don't
Speaker 1: need this. It's weird because on Rock with You, Benjamin,
Speaker 1: I forget Benjamin's last name, the string arranger, there's lush,
Speaker 1: lush strings on Rock with You, in my mind like, oh,
Speaker 1: some Barry White shit. They should have rolled with that,
Speaker 1: but he took it away. And now I see why.
Speaker 1: You know, in hindsight it would have distracted from the
Speaker 1: song because the strings were so beautiful on Rock with
Speaker 1: You that it would have taken away from the song.
Speaker 1: I would have been paying attention to the strings and
Speaker 1: left the song alone. So that's what I mean about
Speaker 1: like being a smart producer, Like I wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: that knowledge. There's nine takes of She's Out of My Life,
Speaker 1: of which the version we all know is the least crying.
Speaker 1: He would have he did, like by take six through eight,
Speaker 1: I'm like, why is Bruce Swedeen letting the tape? I'm
Speaker 1: hearing Quincy like console Michael. He's like, I'm sorry the
Speaker 1: song and everything. And I would have been like, yo,
Speaker 1: I would have milked it for everything. I would have
Speaker 1: chose like take six where he's really crying his eyes out,
Speaker 1: and I would have ruined it. But he knew exactly
Speaker 1: what to take away from it to make it perfect.
Speaker 1: And that's the type of discipline that I wish to
Speaker 1: get to one day. Yeah, one day I'll learn. One
Speaker 1: day I'll learn that's part one of mine and Rick's
Speaker 1: conversation with question nine. Part two is in your ed
Speaker 1: Now listen as he gets behind a kit to break
Speaker 1: down his drumming for us and tells us maybe the
Speaker 1: greatest Barack of Bottle story ever. Seriously. You can listen
Speaker 1: to the songs featured and discussed in this episode at
Speaker 1: broken record podcast dot com. Broken Records produced by Justin
Speaker 1: Richmond and Jason Gambrel with help from Mielobel, Jacob Smith,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Jacob Weissberg, and of course Rick Rubin and
Speaker 1: Bruce Hammond. Our Broken Record theme song is by the
Speaker 1: great Kenny Beats. This show is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Gradwell.