Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What's Up?
Speaker 3: This is unpaid bill from Questlove Supreme.
Speaker 2: So questlof does this thing.
Speaker 3: Usually like once a season where it sits down for
Speaker 3: one of them. Many of us do that and you
Speaker 3: can expect to hear mine soon. But anyway, back in
Speaker 3: May of twenty twenty, a Mere spoke with Nora Jones
Speaker 3: about her career an unlikely journey.
Speaker 2: Into the spotlight.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of heart and soul in this conversation,
Speaker 3: and if you know Nora's music, that's no surprise. As
Speaker 3: we celebrate women's history months, we are picking special.
Speaker 2: Episodes for classics.
Speaker 3: This one is very special and you'll hear why.
Speaker 2: All right, this is gonna be silly. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. This is
Speaker 2: Questlove Today. I'm solo, solo alone, holding it down to
Speaker 2: the fort without boss or paybilled sugar, Steve Light here
Speaker 2: or take a look. We are very honored today to
Speaker 2: be talking shop with a good friend of mine, multi
Speaker 2: Grammy winner, multi instrumentalist, singer just just about everything, almost
Speaker 2: almost celebrating twenty years in this industry since her debut.
Speaker 2: What else is there to say? So well rounded, so awesome.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Norah Jones to Questlove Supreme.
Speaker 2: I'm a cheering accession.
Speaker 4: How you doing, I'll take it.
Speaker 2: Where are you right now?
Speaker 4: I'm in the country. I'm I'm in a bedroom, my
Speaker 4: bedroom here. Yeah, I'm in bedroom.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm sort of in bed, yeah, kind of
Speaker 2: in this new reality yep. So yes, of course I
Speaker 2: have to ask, like, how are you adjusting to what
Speaker 2: we are now calling the new reality? You know, for
Speaker 2: a lot of creatives, I know this is either a
Speaker 2: moment for them to finally just take a breather and
Speaker 2: not have to deal with the circle of the work
Speaker 2: that we put into. For other people, it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: more creativity, Like where are you falling on this?
Speaker 4: Well, my kids are almost four years old and six,
Speaker 4: so I wish I could be more creative, but there
Speaker 4: isn't a ton of time. Okay, but I have little
Speaker 4: snippets of ideas and yeah, it's more about how do
Speaker 4: I get them to not yell at me?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: So you're in that way entertainment mode, yes, exactly, full.
Speaker 2: Time entertainment mood. Okay, I see oh.
Speaker 4: Would you like a hot dog for lunch?
Speaker 2: Again?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 2: Cool sor are there? Okay?
Speaker 4: Good? Though it's a good distraction, I'll say that, Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The prime purpose of the podcast for me is kind
Speaker 2: of seeing the the machinery inside the vehicle and always
Speaker 2: the creative process. So, I mean, I know you've been
Speaker 2: asked this a billion times before, but you know, I
Speaker 2: like to take this approach for our viewers or our listeners.
Speaker 2: Where were you born?
Speaker 4: I was born in New York? Actually, yeah, what part
Speaker 4: of the I think her apartment was like on twenty
Speaker 4: seventh in Lexington, Okay, in Manhattan. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you know your first musical memory? Your first childhood
Speaker 2: musical memory?
Speaker 4: Probably my mom's records. I don't know the exact first,
Speaker 4: but I remember listening to Willie Nelson and Ray Charles
Speaker 4: and Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 2: So your mom was a promoter, correct, you know?
Speaker 4: She she That's how she met my dad. She worked
Speaker 4: for a promoter for a short time, but not really,
Speaker 4: not like long term.
Speaker 2: So she wasn't the Bill Graham of her error that time.
Speaker 4: No, she definitely wasn't. She had many careers. She was
Speaker 4: a dancer, and then she broke her ankle, and then
Speaker 4: she was in the theater, and she worked in commercials
Speaker 4: behind the scenes, and then she was a real estate
Speaker 4: agent and then a nurse. So she was kind of
Speaker 4: all over the place.
Speaker 2: Okay, So her record collection sort of seeped into you.
Speaker 2: What types of records were those?
Speaker 4: A lot of gospel, Aretha Franklin, gospel era stuff, a
Speaker 4: lot of early Ray Charles country music. She's from Oklahoma, Okay,
Speaker 4: so that was sort of in the water too, because
Speaker 4: I grew up in Texas. We moved to Texas when
Speaker 4: I was about three.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, so how different was that from well, I
Speaker 2: mean not that you would have.
Speaker 4: I don't have that many memories memories, but I actually
Speaker 4: my first memory is of a dream I had of
Speaker 4: playing in the playground at Washington Square Parks. So okay,
Speaker 4: I don't really remember.
Speaker 2: So even in the beginning, I mean, what was there
Speaker 2: for you? I know, like a lot of musicians come
Speaker 2: through either an older siblings record or you know, like
Speaker 2: a cousin or someone that puts them onto it. But
Speaker 2: for you, like, did you also like the music of
Speaker 2: the day, Like I meant, by the time you were
Speaker 2: five or six, like Madonna was a thing so like,
Speaker 2: do you remember like your first actual purchase outside of
Speaker 2: your mother's record collection.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I don't think. I listened to the
Speaker 4: music of the day till I was about nine or ten,
Speaker 4: and then I sort of started listening to pop radio.
Speaker 2: Oh so you were old soul from zero to.
Speaker 4: Nine, Well kind of okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Explained your seasoning, all right.
Speaker 4: I listened to like oldies radio, and you know, for
Speaker 4: us in that generation, it was like the nineteen fifties
Speaker 4: and sixties.
Speaker 2: Pop music you got tricked.
Speaker 4: Not the Beatles, like not as cool as that yet,
Speaker 4: but like before that, pre that, you know.
Speaker 2: No that that's my story, Like, yeah, which is bad.
Speaker 2: My dad was an oldies duop singer, so I thought
Speaker 2: the thing was that he tricked me. I thought that
Speaker 2: was the music of the day.
Speaker 4: That's so funny.
Speaker 2: And then in first grade, like my music teachers like no, yeah,
Speaker 2: like here are the Beg's, here are you know that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. But I thought, like Frankie Lyon and
Speaker 2: the teenagers was like I thought there was like a
Speaker 2: new record white a fool small love like that sort
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 4: That's pretty funny. Yeah, that was my stuff until I
Speaker 4: was like nine and then because my mom didn't listen
Speaker 4: to pop radio. She listen to NPR, so I didn't
Speaker 4: know about that stuff. Maybe I had like a babysitter
Speaker 4: who was into Madonna. But then when I was nine,
Speaker 4: it was full on whatever was out and popular. I
Speaker 4: was into.
Speaker 2: So what were you like, how are you relating to
Speaker 2: your friend friends in the area, like in school and
Speaker 2: whatnot if you didn't share the same music taste that
Speaker 2: they did.
Speaker 4: I don't even know. I mean I was in choiring
Speaker 4: school and church. I don't remember it being weird or
Speaker 4: being feeling different. And then by the time kids were
Speaker 4: more interested in that kind of stuff, I was already listening.
Speaker 4: I think the first cassette I purchased was Digital Underground
Speaker 4: because I liked the humpy dance. Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 4: It was the best thing I'd ever heard.
Speaker 2: Okay. Fiona Apple also has a hilarious story where when
Speaker 2: she was making title, I think she was like getting
Speaker 2: gas and she saw like SHATCHI Digital Underground, like lost
Speaker 2: it like this around. That's amazing, freaking Digital Underground. Okay.
Speaker 2: You mentioned, uh, playing piano in church? What type of
Speaker 2: church was this? Was this?
Speaker 4: This was a Methodist church in you know, suburban Texas.
Speaker 4: It was. It was a nice enough church, but they
Speaker 4: had a really Actually I played, I sang in church.
Speaker 4: I didn't play piano in church. But she was a
Speaker 4: cool choir director. I think she was a maybe a
Speaker 4: former Catholic, and so she taught us all these Latin hymns, right,
Speaker 4: so it was cool. And then you know, we did
Speaker 4: like our God is an awesome God. And then I
Speaker 4: stopped going to church after that. But oh okay, not
Speaker 4: because of the song, but you know, it was like
Speaker 4: a mix of It was a mix of stuff, is
Speaker 4: my point.
Speaker 2: Trust me. Everyone has their church Exodus booth exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I see that, the children choir basically.
Speaker 2: Okay, well she be noted you went to you went
Speaker 2: to Booker t Washington. Yeah, high school. Yeah, notables. So
Speaker 2: I meant at the time, well, Roy is way older
Speaker 2: than you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was older, but he was like the hometown hero.
Speaker 2: So were you in school at the time of Erica
Speaker 2: or was that.
Speaker 4: Even she was with Well she was a little bit
Speaker 4: older too, and her album came out when I was
Speaker 4: a junior maybe or a senior. So again it was
Speaker 4: like a huge big deal for us all and I
Speaker 4: was obsessed with that album and it was so cool.
Speaker 4: She came back and like did a talk at the
Speaker 4: school and it was fine, Okay.
Speaker 2: What is it about that high school? Is that a
Speaker 2: performing arts high school? Or so what is it? Because oftentimes,
Speaker 2: I mean when people think of Texas, we don't think
Speaker 2: of like performing arts schools and you know, type of
Speaker 2: artistic expressions and that sort of thing. But like, is
Speaker 2: the community like that down there or.
Speaker 4: I mean, Texas is a big place. The Dallas area
Speaker 4: is a huge suburban place full of small neighborhoods, you know,
Speaker 4: or big neighborhoods, so you know, you can travel twenty
Speaker 4: miles and it's completely different community. But so this school
Speaker 4: was cool because it draws. It draws from all over
Speaker 4: the city. You have to audition to get in, but
Speaker 4: anybody can go there. So kids were commuting from all
Speaker 4: over the city and it was sort of a it
Speaker 4: was I don't know, it was like the place where
Speaker 4: all the cool, weird artists went ended up. You know.
Speaker 4: I came from like a super heavy football marching band situation.
Speaker 4: Cheerleaders were queens of the school.
Speaker 2: Tea. You were in the marching band. I was. I
Speaker 2: played saxophone, you played saxophone.
Speaker 4: I mean I haven't in thirty or twenty five years maybe.
Speaker 2: But if you see a saxophone, I'm assuming the alto
Speaker 2: or a tenor like alto.
Speaker 4: I do hold a special place for marching band in
Speaker 4: my heart.
Speaker 2: But you'll never pick up a sax again.
Speaker 4: I mean, so gross. I still have my saxophone. No, no,
Speaker 4: the saxophone is not gross. I still have my saxophone,
Speaker 4: and I think like the read is still attached from
Speaker 4: twenty five years. It's probably disgusting and growing up kinds
Speaker 4: of mold in it, but for some reason, I still
Speaker 4: have it somewhere.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're the type of creative that will
Speaker 2: You're the type of artist that I feel as though
Speaker 2: you you like experiments. You often change, evolve and go
Speaker 2: through metamorphosis. I do.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 2: That's feeling. Okay, when you break out your saxophone, I'll
Speaker 2: be in that bad.
Speaker 4: I don't know about that. I don't know if that's
Speaker 4: going to happen. I need to practice guitar more.
Speaker 2: First. You always down here, Like every clip I see
Speaker 2: of you and you talk about your guitar. You always
Speaker 2: saying like I need to prove my guitar. I need
Speaker 2: to prove. Yeah, I do you seem to do fine?
Speaker 2: Or are you saying that you just hide well behind
Speaker 2: whoever's playing. Oh that's the secret.
Speaker 4: Well, I think my thing on guitar is cool. I
Speaker 4: just I don't play enough. I'm not I'm not good
Speaker 4: at just playing music at home all the time. I
Speaker 4: don't know how you are if you're always playing no
Speaker 4: matter what. For so long. I think I just worked
Speaker 4: so much I didn't even think about having to play
Speaker 4: or practice, and so now when I'm not working at all,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I forget to play, you know.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, I wanted to know well
Speaker 2: before I get into that, I wanted to know what
Speaker 2: your When when did piano was? I mean, when all
Speaker 2: said and done, do you consider the piano your acts
Speaker 2: of choice? Or voice and acts of choice? When did
Speaker 2: you start playing piano?
Speaker 4: I started playing piano when I was seven, and I
Speaker 4: wanted to take piano lessons really bad, and so my
Speaker 4: mom got a piano and after a couple of weeks,
Speaker 4: I wanted to quit because I didn't like the idea
Speaker 4: of having to practice, you know, and so my mom, Yeah,
Speaker 4: my mom was like, no, I bought you a piano
Speaker 4: because you wanted to play, and she said, I have
Speaker 4: She said you have to take into for five years
Speaker 4: and that way, and then you can quit that way
Speaker 4: if you ever want to go back to it'll be easier.
Speaker 4: And I thought that was pretty annoying at the time,
Speaker 4: but in hindsight, it's pretty It was pretty cool because
Speaker 4: after five years I quit, like on the dot. I
Speaker 4: was like, all right, my five years is up? Really
Speaker 4: more scales? Yeah, I just didn't want to practice.
Speaker 2: How many hours a day did you have to practice?
Speaker 4: I'm the most lazy, p procrastinating practicer. But I don't
Speaker 4: even remember. But I know I had a really good teacher.
Speaker 4: She was awesome, but it was just the classical style
Speaker 4: of learning and it didn't spark a lot of creativity
Speaker 4: in my mind for some reason. So I quit. And
Speaker 4: then about a year later, my mom took me to like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, some she took me to a big
Speaker 4: band concert, and then she took me to see Mary
Speaker 4: and McPartland play in the park, right, and I said,
Speaker 4: this is cool? What's this?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: And so she found this teacher. Well, I think I
Speaker 4: was playing saxophone by that time. In Marching Band, and
Speaker 4: my saxophone teacher recommended this jazz piano teacher in Dallas
Speaker 4: named Julie Bank. She was super cool and she was
Speaker 4: a great teacher. She taught me how to readcord changes
Speaker 4: and improvise and tried to spark me and writing songs.
Speaker 4: So it just totally took a different direction from then.
Speaker 2: So this is how you're discovering jazz chops.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is like eighth grade when I got into
Speaker 4: jazz and my mom she checked out, like, you know,
Speaker 4: the Smithsonian Jazz Collection at the library and we dubbed
Speaker 4: it on a cassette and then that was my bible
Speaker 4: for a few years.
Speaker 2: Really. Yeah, So how did you hone those chaps into
Speaker 2: like did you play and local bands? High school bands?
Speaker 2: Like did you bond with anybody your age in jazz
Speaker 2: or yeah?
Speaker 4: I just keep it to yourself, well being in Marching band.
Speaker 4: I mean the kids in Marching Band already were sort
Speaker 4: of into stuff like that, some of them there was
Speaker 4: like a jazz band. And then I went to interlock
Speaker 4: In for a summer.
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 4: It's like an arts camp in Michigan and it's too Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's two months long and I got really into hanging
Speaker 4: with people who knew a lot about it, you know,
Speaker 4: and then I really wanted to go there. They had
Speaker 4: a they have a school during the year and arts school,
Speaker 4: but you have to leave home. It's like a what
Speaker 4: do you call it? A school where you live there.
Speaker 4: My brain isn't working right now. But my mom was like,
Speaker 4: no way, You're not leaving home. Oh yeah. I just
Speaker 4: loved it. It was great, and I wanted to continue
Speaker 4: doing it, and she was like, hell no. Checked the
Speaker 4: school out and she found Booker T Washington and we
Speaker 4: moved to Dallas just so I could be in county
Speaker 4: to audition and go there, and then all the kids there.
Speaker 4: That's I mean, I learned from the kids at my school.
Speaker 4: I learned so much. So many of those kids knew
Speaker 4: so much about music, so many geniuses, you know.
Speaker 2: Probably I was going to say any other notable students
Speaker 2: at they're at the time that.
Speaker 4: Are like, well, I think the people that I learned
Speaker 4: the most with were piano players who a couple of
Speaker 4: them were a year or two older, like I was
Speaker 4: there when Brayln Lacey was there, and Sean Martin on
Speaker 4: the keys. R. C. Williams right I learned so much
Speaker 4: from these guys. They grew up in church, playing piano
Speaker 4: in the church bands and stuff, and they knew. I mean,
Speaker 4: they're just geniuses anyway. But I don't know. It was
Speaker 4: a cool, cool environment.
Speaker 2: Was an equally like a sort of accepting atmosphere or
Speaker 2: did you feel like, all right, I got to come
Speaker 2: with it and let them know I speak the same language,
Speaker 2: or no, I'm such a dork.
Speaker 4: I was just like, Hi, guys, can I hang out
Speaker 4: with you? It was super accepting. Everybody there was an oddball,
Speaker 4: you know anyway, so everybody was cool.
Speaker 2: See I went to I went to school with Christian
Speaker 2: McBride and Joey de Francisco Wow and and Kurt Roseawinkle
Speaker 2: and I can. I I always compare going to that
Speaker 2: the school I went to the Philadelphia version of that
Speaker 2: school kind of as I consider it, sort of like
Speaker 2: a it was like a gang experience, like a Bloods
Speaker 2: and Crypts experience. And Joey and Chris like they wouldn't
Speaker 2: even they don't give you the time of day or respect,
Speaker 2: like you instantly know that they're the alphas of band
Speaker 2: class and that you had to I mean the first
Speaker 2: day of school the first day of school, Miles Davis
Speaker 2: is giving a masterclass and not only takes Joey and
Speaker 2: Chris to do this thing with him on television, but
Speaker 2: then later hires Joey's to replace Kenny Kirkland. So that
Speaker 2: was like my first day at the school. And so
Speaker 2: you know, they just knew all traditional jazz. Meanwhile, Kurt Rosenwinkle,
Speaker 2: who's such an experimental avant garde musician. I mean he's
Speaker 2: on Verb Records right now, but back then he was
Speaker 2: trying to unlearn me or unteach me all the traditional
Speaker 2: like the traditional stuff, and he's like, nah, man, I
Speaker 2: want you to listening to Frank Zappa, Yeah, Captain Beefheart
Speaker 2: and you know Minor Vshue Orchestra John mclaughing. So you know,
Speaker 2: I was like trying to I was on like both
Speaker 2: sides of the gang.
Speaker 4: That's great for you.
Speaker 2: I'm in school, but then I left them both for
Speaker 2: a rap career.
Speaker 4: So oh you're informed. You're informed by all of it,
Speaker 4: and you became who you are.
Speaker 2: You know, it helped, but it was it was like
Speaker 2: it was literally like being into like whatever side was winning,
Speaker 2: that was my side.
Speaker 4: Like okay, that's funny. Here there the ping pong ball exactly.
Speaker 4: I didn't feel that. I know that attitude you're talking about.
Speaker 4: It's like a young musician thing, for sure, I feel like,
Speaker 4: but I didn't feel that at my school. Maybe I
Speaker 4: was too naive to see it, but I never I
Speaker 4: never felt it. It's pretty pretty welcoming, honestly.
Speaker 2: I mean before your career took off. I mean, did
Speaker 2: you have a plan just for like, Okay, I'll do
Speaker 2: the college thing, go to Berkeley or go to Yeah.
Speaker 4: I well, we were in Dallas, so I did. I
Speaker 4: wanted to go to like the New School or Manhattan
Speaker 4: School Music, but we stayed in state tuition because University
Speaker 4: of North Texas has a great jazz program, okay, And
Speaker 4: so I went there for two years and I took
Speaker 4: all my classes, all my music classes, and I failed
Speaker 4: my classical piano jury because I just didn't practice enough.
Speaker 4: And then I came to New York for the summer,
Speaker 4: and I had a real sort of moment of reckoning,
Speaker 4: and I thought, well, if I go back to finish college,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna have to take academics for two years because
Speaker 4: I already took all the jazz classes and I'm going
Speaker 4: to have to do classical two years of classical juries
Speaker 4: and really practice, and I just didn't want to do
Speaker 4: any of that.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? What did it 't tell? Like
Speaker 2: the classical jury.
Speaker 4: Part, it's not that it was so hard. It's that
Speaker 4: I really just didn't practice enough. It was like scales
Speaker 4: and arpeggios and one song. It wasn't that hard. I
Speaker 4: was really into the other stuff I was doing, and
Speaker 4: I kind of let it slide.
Speaker 2: Understandable. I'm just standable. So once she came to New York,
Speaker 2: what was the paradigm shift that really opened its doors
Speaker 2: as far as like, Okay, I can have a career
Speaker 2: and start singing. Like what was that moment?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I realized that I could play gigs
Speaker 4: and but I would have to start witting tables. It
Speaker 4: was different because in college I had a weekly gig
Speaker 4: where I made enough money to make my rent and
Speaker 4: plus tips and food. I played at this restaurant and
Speaker 4: I learned how to sing and play at the same time,
Speaker 4: which is sort of It was just like paid practice.
Speaker 4: So it was great. But then when I moved to
Speaker 4: New York, I realized, oh shit, I gotta wait tables
Speaker 4: because I can't make enough money playing gigs because they
Speaker 4: didn't pay very much at all, and I got a
Speaker 4: little burnt out. I came to New York singing jazz
Speaker 4: and playing the piano, but I wasn't as good a
Speaker 4: piano player as most piano players out there, but I
Speaker 4: knew I could sing, so I had that, you know
Speaker 4: that going for me, sort of, you know, trying to.
Speaker 4: I came to New York to do this thing, and
Speaker 4: then I what happened? Your eyes just went like.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, you can't hear this, can you? No, Zoe,
Speaker 2: I'm interviewing Nord Jones right Okay, this is a flex.
Speaker 2: Zoe Kravis just interrupted us. I'm interviewing Nord Jones right
Speaker 2: now for my podcast. Hi, She said, all right, this
Speaker 2: is Are you okay over there in London? Okay? Thank you? Sorry? Wait,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, okay. Side note, it's twenty twenty. I'm the
Speaker 2: person that likes a person to text me first and
Speaker 2: then tell me that they're calling, not just call me.
Speaker 4: That's the thing that people do now, but it's kind
Speaker 4: of weird too.
Speaker 2: Wait are you a call before you are you a
Speaker 2: text before you call? Person? Yes?
Speaker 4: Or at least because everybody.
Speaker 2: Is, or at least Warren before you FaceTime.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I'm also not somebody who just picks up
Speaker 4: the phone if somebody calls me. You seem to also
Speaker 4: be someone who just picks it up no matter what.
Speaker 2: Well. I saw it with her, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: this must be about I work on her show, so obviously,
Speaker 2: but I forgot to turn my ringer off. So I
Speaker 2: know that Bill kill me over that too. Sorry.
Speaker 4: No, it's the thing. You You either ignore the call
Speaker 4: if you don't want to be caught off guard, or
Speaker 4: you take it anyway. So I guess that says a
Speaker 4: lot about you, even though you prefer the text.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to turn it off. Sorry, Oh
Speaker 2: I don't care anyway. Yeah, so you were saying that
Speaker 2: singing at least gave you an edge. I really I
Speaker 2: love your voice, by the way, which I don't think
Speaker 2: you get enough praise for. Like who's the person that
Speaker 2: who's your your spirit animal when you're singing? Like you know,
Speaker 2: because I'm not a singer, I can't say I know that.
Speaker 2: When I'm drumming. There's four particular drummers that I know
Speaker 2: influenced and raised me and I'm like a combination of that.
Speaker 2: But who's your singing spirit animal?
Speaker 4: I think growing up it was Ray Charles and Aretha
Speaker 4: Franklin and Billie Holliday.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm skipping into the future. How is it
Speaker 2: working with Ray on the Ones stew Wets record?
Speaker 4: It was amazing. He was super sweet. We did three
Speaker 4: live takes and then he left and that was.
Speaker 2: It, just real quick in and out.
Speaker 4: It was just real quick live takes with the band
Speaker 4: and Billy Preston was playing Oregon, so it was awesome.
Speaker 4: My mom came. She saw him play when she was
Speaker 4: in high school, so it's the first time I've ever
Speaker 4: seen her quiet. You know, it was great. He was
Speaker 4: he was he was pretty sick already, so okay, he
Speaker 4: was nice though.
Speaker 2: So just sing the song got out super nice.
Speaker 4: Though, Yeah, like like warm and kind. But I mean,
Speaker 4: I love all these people, but I think I've tried
Speaker 4: to keep I don't know, I learned. I think when
Speaker 4: I came to New York and I was singing jazz
Speaker 4: and I got a little sort of disheartened and I realized,
Speaker 4: I'm singing all these old songs that Billy Holliday sang,
Speaker 4: and I'm putting my own been on it and it's cool.
Speaker 4: But I started going in the living room and writing
Speaker 4: songs and singing songs by my friends that they were writing,
Speaker 4: and I felt a little more creative in that way.
Speaker 4: And I kind of fell off the jazz scene.
Speaker 2: So you didn't want to get typecast as like a
Speaker 2: sort of derivative Billie Holiday.
Speaker 4: And I don't know if it was about wanting to
Speaker 4: get typecast. I think it was just about I couldn't
Speaker 4: get any gigs that were satisfying. You know. I played
Speaker 4: in restaurants. I went to Smiles a lot, and I
Speaker 4: watched people play and it was awesome, but I couldn't
Speaker 4: get a gig there yet. And I did get a
Speaker 4: gig at the living room though, where the audience listened
Speaker 4: and I felt really connected to something.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, Okay, so I've been in
Speaker 2: New York for ten years now, and how often I
Speaker 2: got like I got a little maybe four or five
Speaker 2: in the cut jazz spots that I go to just
Speaker 2: to yeah, chilled and be anonymous, or is any that
Speaker 2: says you can be at six ' three with an afro?
Speaker 2: But but the one thing that really like it's disheartening
Speaker 2: for me when I'm in these jazz clubs is oftentimes
Speaker 2: like tourists will come and they'll just talk over you,
Speaker 2: and it's almost like you're just a human juke box
Speaker 2: and just in the background to their conversation. Like is
Speaker 2: that just that's the disheartening thing that you were.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I realized it as tourists then,
Speaker 4: I mean, that was twenty years ago. I moved to
Speaker 4: New York twenty years ago. Last summer.
Speaker 2: Well, now I'm observe. I observe it as like I'll.
Speaker 4: Go now, well now it is more tourists. It is
Speaker 4: more so than it used to be. But I mean
Speaker 4: I think at the time, like I couldn't get a
Speaker 4: gig there yet because I wasn't as good as a
Speaker 4: piano player, and a lot of those places didn't hire
Speaker 4: a ton of singers. Not saying they never hired singers,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't really it didn't seem that easy for
Speaker 4: me to play in a place where people were really listening.
Speaker 2: Oh, you would have what I'm saying, So your piano
Speaker 2: chops have to be on point to get kind of
Speaker 2: I get it, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And also just like the gigs they could get and
Speaker 4: did get. Were restaurant gigs were I kind of knew
Speaker 4: going in. They weren't like listening room gigs, and they
Speaker 4: were great practice. But once I started playing original music
Speaker 4: for tips instead of like forty bucks, it was just
Speaker 4: more satisfying. I started waiting more tables and doing less
Speaker 4: restaurant gigs and more singer songwriter plays gigs, and it
Speaker 4: was more sad. It was just more fulfilling and inspiring.
Speaker 2: If masse some I'm curious, before you started doing original material,
Speaker 2: you would just go through the fake book and just
Speaker 2: through the standards. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I kind of mostly did standards. I mean I wouldn't
Speaker 4: just yeah. I mean I had like my favorites, and
Speaker 4: that's I would do a lot of that.
Speaker 2: I wonder, is the fake book still a thing?
Speaker 4: I still have one?
Speaker 2: You still have a fake Okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: For our listeners out there. I don't I don't want
Speaker 2: to date myself, but I would probably say that if
Speaker 2: you were a jazz musician, a working jazz musician, or
Speaker 2: a student. In the sixties, seventies, or eighties, there was
Speaker 2: sort of a a Wikipedia slash cliff Notes guide tutorial
Speaker 2: to core charts of every jazz song and the same
Speaker 2: for singers as well. And it's almost like a Bible
Speaker 2: of jazz, which yeah, you kind of need if you're cool.
Speaker 2: So you still So they still make fake books.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I know, I have an old, old,
Speaker 4: old one.
Speaker 2: You. I just want to say, do you know why
Speaker 2: they call it a fake book?
Speaker 4: I don't know. But then they had the real book.
Speaker 4: They called it the real book, I thought, and then
Speaker 4: they called it a fake book too, But I could
Speaker 4: never understand the difference between a real book and a
Speaker 4: fake book.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I always guess is that the fake
Speaker 2: book had other songs in it, and it wasn't officially
Speaker 2: done by that company.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it was definitely like not nobody got paid
Speaker 4: for it since it wasn't It wasn't chet music. It
Speaker 4: was like cheat music that was underground and circulated like
Speaker 4: on a Xerox machine.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, when did you get your deal and how
Speaker 2: did you come to the attention of Bruce at a
Speaker 2: Blue Note?
Speaker 4: Well, I was doing one of those jazz restaurant gigs
Speaker 4: at the garage on Seventh Avenue, and my bass player's
Speaker 4: friend's wife, they all came for brunch. It was like
Speaker 4: a brunch gig. And she happened to work for Emi
Speaker 4: Music Publishing and I was doing jazz at that gig.
Speaker 4: I had started, you know, doing those songwriter gigs already,
Speaker 4: but this was a jazz gig. And she said, Hey,
Speaker 4: I know Bruce Linvall. I met him at a company picnic.
Speaker 4: What if I set up an appointment for you? And
Speaker 4: I was like, all right, whatever, Yeah, I'm like okay,
Speaker 4: I mean, sure, I'll show up, that's for sure. But
Speaker 4: I didn't really know if she was for real all right.
Speaker 4: And I had a demo that I had made to
Speaker 4: take around the clubs to get gigs. So I brought
Speaker 4: the demo. I had two standards on it, and I
Speaker 4: had one song by my friend Jesse Harris who wrote
Speaker 4: Don't Know Why, And we were already friends and playing
Speaker 4: around together, and so I brought it in. I was twenty,
Speaker 4: it was the gig was my twenty first birthday, so
Speaker 4: it was probably two thousand. The yeah, it was two thousand.
Speaker 4: April of two thousand is when I had this meeting
Speaker 4: with him.
Speaker 2: When your birthday?
Speaker 4: No, the gig was on my birthday, so it was
Speaker 4: like a month later.
Speaker 2: Totally okay, okay. And then that's when you knew shit
Speaker 2: was real.
Speaker 4: I mean, I knew she could get me an appointment
Speaker 4: with him. I didn't really know what was real for
Speaker 4: a while. But he said, well, there's this pop song
Speaker 4: on here, kind of it's not really a pop song,
Speaker 4: but whatever, it was not a jazz standard, right, And
Speaker 4: he's like, so, do you want to be a jazz
Speaker 4: singer or a pop singer? And I was like, I'm
Speaker 4: sitting there in Blue Note office jazz singer.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: And then he gave me some money to make some demos,
Speaker 4: and the demos ended up being a few of the
Speaker 4: songs from that first record, and he decided that it
Speaker 4: wasn't super jazz. It wasn't like, it wasn't what he thought.
Speaker 4: It wasn't jazz, but he still liked it enough to
Speaker 4: sign it, right, so he went ahead and signed me.
Speaker 2: All right. So, in hindsight, because no one can plan,
Speaker 2: no one can plan this phenomenon, how does one capture
Speaker 2: lightning in the bottle? Like, there's no way in the
Speaker 2: world that you can ever foresee that you're about to
Speaker 2: make history. I don't even know if you accepted the
Speaker 2: fact that you've made history or if you're just taking
Speaker 2: the No, it was just those are the that's what
Speaker 2: I was feeling at the time in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 2: and made these songs and that's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it definitely was. The actual album was just us
Speaker 4: capturing moments, as a lot of albums are, but I
Speaker 4: think this one was done with a lot of spontaneity.
Speaker 4: And don't know why. That song don't know why. It
Speaker 4: was the demo that we recorded the first day of recording,
Speaker 4: and it was the live take. Everything in the take
Speaker 4: is live. We added an extra guitar and some harmonies,
Speaker 4: and that was it.
Speaker 2: So that was the very first thing you've recorded.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that was for these demos to get signed,
Speaker 4: and wasn't even signed yet. And then once I got signed,
Speaker 4: I like went back in and we did a bunch
Speaker 4: of more produced sessions that ended up getting mostly cut,
Speaker 4: and then we went back to kind of the demo
Speaker 4: style of recording.
Speaker 2: Just said, oh, let's get that first song we did
Speaker 2: and see what happens with that.
Speaker 4: We tried to re record don't know why, and it
Speaker 4: was so not as good, so we just.
Speaker 2: It's it's funny you say that, do you do you
Speaker 2: know the story behind Christina Aguilera is beautiful. Linda Perry
Speaker 2: has a story in which, you know, like she wants
Speaker 2: our artist to like live with a demo for about
Speaker 2: three or four weeks and then that way they really
Speaker 2: internalized the song and then they come back and then
Speaker 2: they kill the song. And so Christina is like, all right,
Speaker 2: let me just go in and sing this thing real quick.
Speaker 2: And so she just did like a rough you know, yawn,
Speaker 2: All right, here's my take, and then I'll come back
Speaker 2: and I'll really you.
Speaker 4: Know, kill this before she lived with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, before she lived with it, you know. And
Speaker 2: then Christina is expecting like to add her you know,
Speaker 2: of her aguilera is to it, and you know, Linda
Speaker 2: was like, no, let's just stick with the demo, and
Speaker 2: Christina like it was like the biggest fight of their relationship,
Speaker 2: like really, and She's like, no, the dryness and the
Speaker 2: regularness of this is what sells the song, trust me.
Speaker 2: And she I don't know they forced it or kicked
Speaker 2: and screamed it, but like she, Linda Perry won the
Speaker 2: battle and the demo is the version that we know,
Speaker 2: whereas Christina felt like, let me, you know, add exclamation
Speaker 2: points to the end of the sentence, and she's like, she's.
Speaker 4: Like an athlete. She's like this insane, right.
Speaker 2: But this was just a foul shot. It wasn't a
Speaker 2: it wasn't the you know, the All Star dunk contest,
Speaker 2: but it.
Speaker 4: Had the heart. I mean, I think that for me,
Speaker 4: I'm way better on first takes or not even just
Speaker 4: for takes, but like when the spontaneity factor is there,
Speaker 4: and yes, you need to know the song and be
Speaker 4: able to sell the lyric. But for me, when I
Speaker 4: when I overthink or over rehearse something, it's not as good. Yeah, spontaneity.
Speaker 2: My engineer is smart enough to know to record everything.
Speaker 2: So oftentimes I'll like quote run down a performance and
Speaker 2: then be like, all right, let me go for it,
Speaker 2: and then we always just wind up choosing the or
Speaker 2: you're not thinking about it I had or.
Speaker 4: The fifteenth drunk take, yeah, the first three, you know.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you worked with one of my heroes on
Speaker 2: this record, mister Martin. Yeah, Reef Martin, Uh yeah a Reef.
Speaker 2: You know he for me, I know this is odd
Speaker 2: for people to hear, but the average white band is
Speaker 2: like they were my heroes growing up, and their Gruman
Speaker 2: Steve aron is my drumming idol. Steve Roon actually gave
Speaker 2: me his actual drum set from all those Sun sessions
Speaker 2: that I still use on the Tonight Show now and
Speaker 2: a Reef produced them. And so that's how I came
Speaker 2: to attention from you, because it's almost like anything that
Speaker 2: a Reef has touched. Then I purchased it without fault.
Speaker 2: So that's how like, that's funny. I was like, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: he has a new artist, he's still producing, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And then that's how it entered. How did you how?
Speaker 2: How was he assigned to you?
Speaker 4: Well, when Bruce Lundvall signed me, I was obsessed with
Speaker 4: the Cassandra Wilson New Moon Daughter album that was on
Speaker 4: the Note that he had, you know, put out a
Speaker 4: few years before, and I really wanted to work with
Speaker 4: Craig Street, who's an amazing producer, and so I did
Speaker 4: and it was incredible, had the most amazing musicians. I
Speaker 4: love Craig. It was great, but there was something about
Speaker 4: those sessions that didn't capture my vocal in the right
Speaker 4: way that where it sounded like the thing from the
Speaker 4: demos that we had already captured. So we ended up
Speaker 4: kind of going back to the drawing board, which was crazy.
Speaker 4: At the time. I didn't think I was going to
Speaker 4: have the option to remake my record. I didn't think
Speaker 4: they were going to give me any extra money to
Speaker 4: do it right, and it was weird that it even happened.
Speaker 4: But Bruce, it was his idea to go back and
Speaker 4: try to recapture the sort of first thing we did.
Speaker 4: So he said, but I'm going to have my friend
Speaker 4: a Reef Martin. He had just hooked up with Manhattan,
Speaker 4: the label that Bruce was also running was another label
Speaker 4: called Manhattan. Anyway, a Reef was doing stuff with him,
Speaker 4: and so he said, I want a Reef Martin to
Speaker 4: come and do it. And I was really nervous at
Speaker 4: that point.
Speaker 2: I was like, Ah, did you know his predigree? By
Speaker 2: that point I did.
Speaker 4: I mean, I grew up on all those Aretha records
Speaker 4: and on Donnie Hathaway, and I was nervous that he
Speaker 4: was going to come in and not listen to me
Speaker 4: or not because he was this huge producer. And then
Speaker 4: he came in and he's like the sweetest older Turkish
Speaker 4: man and he came into the sessions and I told Bruce,
Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, but after a couple of days,
Speaker 4: if it's not working out, you're just gonna let me
Speaker 4: do this right. It was so weird. I was like
Speaker 4: twenty one years old, you know. I was both scared
Speaker 4: and also really stubborn, you know, and he ended up
Speaker 4: being he let us kind of do our thing, but
Speaker 4: he guided us, but he knew the situation. And so
Speaker 4: the more we got to know him, the more he
Speaker 4: was able to help, you know, tell us more what
Speaker 4: we should do musically. But he became like this great friend.
Speaker 4: I never in my wife thought I would have a
Speaker 4: a friend who was a Turkish Man in his seventies.
Speaker 4: He was like one of my best friends, and it
Speaker 4: was incredible.
Speaker 2: Man. I think the night that I first met you
Speaker 2: in person was at the Grammys when it was that
Speaker 2: New York. The night that you oh yeah, because we
Speaker 2: were like rehearsal went eminem so much. I couldn't get
Speaker 2: to a reef. I saw him in the audience and
Speaker 2: wanted to drunk for my drum set, like in stalk him,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't do that.
Speaker 4: He was special.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be the one person that doesn't ask
Speaker 2: you the cliche of so what have you learned? After,
Speaker 2: you know, for any lessons. So however, I will say
Speaker 2: that once Kenny g covers your.
Speaker 4: Song, I forgot that. I forgot about that.
Speaker 2: Actually, how many emails did you get over that?
Speaker 4: I don't remember. I remember Pat Metheny did it.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 4: Don't know why. I mean, I didn't write that song.
Speaker 4: My friend Jesse Harris wrote it.
Speaker 2: But still we still associated with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I still feel like I own it a
Speaker 4: little bit, but I don't remember. I must have forgotten
Speaker 4: that era. There was a whole era there where I
Speaker 4: don't remember very much. But that's so funny. I forgot
Speaker 4: about that completely.
Speaker 2: How eager were you to knock over your your jinga
Speaker 2: design to start all over again? I mean, that's the
Speaker 2: only I can describe it. You feel way to describe it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: how eager were you to do it?
Speaker 4: I was super eager. I was just eager to make music,
Speaker 4: and I was eager to play guitar and write more songs.
Speaker 4: I was inspired. I was listening to a ton of
Speaker 4: like bluegrass at the time, so my second album was
Speaker 4: a little bit more country inspired. But I was definitely
Speaker 4: excited to get it over with as well. That's not
Speaker 4: to say I rushed the music at all, or that
Speaker 4: I was like hurrying and put out something I wasn't
Speaker 4: proud of, but I was stoked to be inspired and
Speaker 4: to just go ahead and plow through the second record
Speaker 4: and not not overthink it.
Speaker 2: Oh for feels like home? Correct, yeah, I think. But
Speaker 2: that did like a million its first week.
Speaker 4: Which yeah, which was great.
Speaker 2: Which it almost is like, okay.
Speaker 4: All right, I can move on now more than.
Speaker 2: Where did you out? Out of your you know, because
Speaker 2: you've gone through so many I won't even say phases
Speaker 2: because I don't feel like these are like drastic Bowie
Speaker 2: or Prince like changes in your music, but I mean
Speaker 2: you you definitely added personality to all your records. My okay,
Speaker 2: So my personal favorite of your cannon is Little Broken
Speaker 2: Hearts but for you and don't give me the like
Speaker 2: all my all my records to like my children, and
Speaker 2: I guess some of.
Speaker 4: Them I like more than others. Just kidding, but do
Speaker 4: you feel.
Speaker 2: What do you feel? Is like what's your I put
Speaker 2: my my ass in that one, my FOOTNT one.
Speaker 4: I think I also love that one you're talking about,
Speaker 4: see I'm smart, The Danger Mouse one. It's just so
Speaker 4: different and I love the sonics of it. But it's
Speaker 4: funny because I've been playing the last couple of years.
Speaker 4: I've been playing here and there with piano trio, just
Speaker 4: me and Brian Blade on drums, Chris Thomas on bass,
Speaker 4: sometimes different bass players. But when I started playing with
Speaker 4: this group, I thought, oh, okay, I'm gonna pull out
Speaker 4: some of the more jazzy songs in my catalog. But truthfully,
Speaker 4: my favorite songs to play with this setup is the
Speaker 4: songs from that album A Little Broken Hearts, and they
Speaker 4: are it's not just not what I thought it would be.
Speaker 4: They're just I think they're great songs, and I think
Speaker 4: I think that Brian Burton is an incredible songwriter, and
Speaker 4: we had so much fun making that record, And.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, yeah, no, it's it's it's it's definitely special.
Speaker 2: Do you feel what is your creative process like with songwriting,
Speaker 2: because I know that collaboration is also a big thing
Speaker 2: for you. Do you tend to do birds of a
Speaker 2: feather as far as flock to people that because I
Speaker 2: know that you've worked with Jeff Jeff Tweety, Jeff Wilcome,
Speaker 2: I always call him no like you work with Tweety
Speaker 2: and but I'm just saying that, do you often ever
Speaker 2: consider like totally like, okay, well, time out. I totally
Speaker 2: forgot now that you worked with Andre three thousand. So
Speaker 2: even when you're entering in what we would think your
Speaker 2: general audience would think like not familiar territory, like, how
Speaker 2: does the how does the process start?
Speaker 4: Well? I mean a lot of stuff I've collaborated with
Speaker 4: people on it's already done and I'm just coming in
Speaker 4: and singing. Like with the Andre three thousand thing, the
Speaker 4: Q tip song, I went in and I just sang
Speaker 4: what do you wanted me to sing? But as far
Speaker 4: as collaborating songwriting, why is it's been evolving over the years,
Speaker 4: It's completely changed. I mean I used to be a
Speaker 4: nervous songwriter, and now I think after doing the record
Speaker 4: with Brian, actually his process really opened me up to
Speaker 4: no fear songwriting.
Speaker 2: I'm just curious, because we're supposed to eventually get with Brian,
Speaker 2: what is his actual process because no, the thing is
Speaker 2: I know I know his YouTube process.
Speaker 4: Yeah it might be different for everyone.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know that's way different. I want to know
Speaker 2: another non YouTube way, like, how does it start well?
Speaker 4: For us? I mean we just went in We're pretty
Speaker 4: comfortable with each other. At this point, we were already friends,
Speaker 4: we'd already hung out a bunch. I sang on the
Speaker 4: Rome album with him, so I got to know him
Speaker 4: through all that. But you know, we both play whatever
Speaker 4: instruments sound good in the room, and the song starts
Speaker 4: with a weird bass line or a weird chord progression
Speaker 4: or me strumming something.
Speaker 2: On the guitar, and it goes to music first.
Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, I don't remember completely, not always. Sometimes
Speaker 4: like it'll be a melody, or he'll have a melody
Speaker 4: in his head, or he'll have a lyric and a
Speaker 4: melody in his head, or I will, and it sort
Speaker 4: of just built from there, and usually we tried to
Speaker 4: get some kind of melody down, whether he's hearing something
Speaker 4: or whether I am. And then this is where I
Speaker 4: learned a lot from him, because first of all, this
Speaker 4: process was totally different than anything I'd ever done. I'd
Speaker 4: never gone into the studio with nothing or with a
Speaker 4: bunch of instruments and just like adding stuff, layering it.
Speaker 4: I've never done that. I had never done that, And
Speaker 4: so I would like sing some scratch lyrics and he's
Speaker 4: like that's cool, We'll get the lyrics later. I was like, really,
Speaker 4: I'm so worried about it. Are we going to get him?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: And I would come in and I'd be like, I'm
Speaker 4: just worried about this. I really like this, but I
Speaker 4: don't know what to write. What are the lyrics? He's like,
Speaker 4: they'll come, don't worry about it, And you know what,
Speaker 4: they always came, and they were always in the moment
Speaker 4: and heartfelt, and you know, we worked on him. But
Speaker 4: that was a nice way for me to learn. And
Speaker 4: lately I've been doing more of that. I've been going
Speaker 4: in with people with nothing and just trying to like
Speaker 4: throw stuff at the wall and coming out with stuff
Speaker 4: that I'm totally in love with. You know.
Speaker 2: So you never go through because the one the one
Speaker 2: thing I had to commend you on at least, is
Speaker 2: that you deliver and you push through. Because normally, whenever
Speaker 2: anyone gets into a position of something that gargantuan or successful,
Speaker 2: that's usually when they start sabotaging their creative process. That's
Speaker 2: usually when writer's block sets in and decades go by
Speaker 2: before even hear another note from them. And so the
Speaker 2: fact that you push through it and also, I mean
Speaker 2: all your side projects with the Little Willie's and with
Speaker 2: Push and Boots. How many other side projects do you have?
Speaker 2: Which one is? Well, my favorite is Carlo what projects?
Speaker 4: You're like, you're like the only fan of that band?
Speaker 4: You know that that is called El Madmo And that
Speaker 4: was brief. But we put out a record and we
Speaker 4: didn't put any of our names on it because at
Speaker 4: the time, I think it was right after my second
Speaker 4: album had come out, and I think part of me
Speaker 4: staying creative and enjoying music was to pull back a
Speaker 4: little bit from all the attention, and so this album
Speaker 4: was really fun, and then we put it out under
Speaker 4: these fake names, and then nobody really knew about it. It
Speaker 4: was kind of like we totally sabotaged it by doing that.
Speaker 4: But you're like the only fan.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I have it. It's still on my iPod. Yes.
Speaker 4: That was sort of the beginning of me playing guitar,
Speaker 4: and we went on like this huge stadium tour on
Speaker 4: the fields like home record basically, and my drummer and
Speaker 4: my backup singer at the time we started this band,
Speaker 4: and me and her learned how to play bass and
Speaker 4: guitar a little bit and that was before Puss in
Speaker 4: Boots continued my sort of guitar education.
Speaker 2: But speaking of collaborations, how did you and Billy Joe
Speaker 2: Armstrong wind up doing the Evely Brothers album.
Speaker 4: Billy Chill called me and he asked if I would
Speaker 4: be into doing this thing, and I I was a
Speaker 4: little unsure. I was like, well, let's go in the
Speaker 4: studio a couple of days and see if we fit.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to commit to did you know anything
Speaker 2: like of him?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well the screen day. But I mean like it
Speaker 2: was like a cold call.
Speaker 4: And yeah, it was cold call and I picked up. No.
Speaker 4: See that's what happens when you pick.
Speaker 2: Up and now you got to commit to an album.
Speaker 4: Oh damn it. No, No, I don't remember. I don't remember.
Speaker 4: It was a cold call.
Speaker 2: But well, I can only imagine that there's other projects
Speaker 2: that have been pitched to you that you were sort
Speaker 2: of like, I'm not sure. Wait, can you name one
Speaker 2: artist that you were supposed to work with or.
Speaker 4: I'll never tell.
Speaker 2: Okay, the.
Speaker 4: Things that I regretted saying no to though, let me
Speaker 4: know one.
Speaker 2: Let me know one.
Speaker 4: No, Oh, I feel weird, Just say what I regret?
Speaker 4: I got an email from Farrell once and I was
Speaker 4: just too busy or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I was bummed I didn't do it, but I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was something crazy or what.
Speaker 2: But I would have liked you on a song that
Speaker 2: starts with four hits at the beginning, me too.
Speaker 4: Tell him to call me back, I miss I missed
Speaker 4: my chance.
Speaker 2: An He's always created, So.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's the thing is. I think I
Speaker 4: went through a little period of kind of being overwhelmed
Speaker 4: by everything and just wanting to sort of chill. So
Speaker 4: I said, notice some things. That year I had a
Speaker 4: little bit of my own little mini nervous breakdown. But yeah,
Speaker 4: Billy Joe called me and I said, let's try a
Speaker 4: couple of days before we commit to doing it because
Speaker 4: he wanted to do this whole album. It wasn't just
Speaker 4: a song or two, and it was cool. He let
Speaker 4: me hire the band from New York. He came to
Speaker 4: New York to do it, and I really love that record.
Speaker 4: Is beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Surprising. Well, I mean it's not surprising.
Speaker 4: Because it is surprising.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the thing is is that I was
Speaker 2: sort of like, okay, but then it's like, Okay, you
Speaker 2: collaborate with everyone, so it's almost like I'm not shocked.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that shocking, but yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 4: It's just cool play well with others. You could say, all.
Speaker 2: Right, so our alto saxophone, jermm, collaboration, we'll do sun
Speaker 2: raw songs or whatever. So it's pick Me off the Floor.
Speaker 2: That's going to be your eighth record, correct.
Speaker 4: I don't know, well, your eighths or eight I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, besides the single, I haven't heard the I haven't
Speaker 2: heard the album yet.
Speaker 4: But oh that's too bad. I really I think you'll
Speaker 4: be into it, are you, indo Brian.
Speaker 2: Blade, Yes, well more than that, I'm a Neward Jones fan.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I'm not doing this because you're just next
Speaker 2: on the pike.
Speaker 4: Like, well, I think you'd like it because it's a
Speaker 4: lot of this piano trio stuff I was talking about.
Speaker 4: I got really inspired to write for this piano trio setup,
Speaker 4: and we ended up adding stuff and adding some production
Speaker 4: to it, but it all most of the records started
Speaker 4: sort of stripped down, and the single is actually not
Speaker 4: even what this is. The two songs I released so
Speaker 4: far are the two exceptions to this sort of piano
Speaker 4: trio bass of this record. But it yeah, a little bit,
Speaker 4: but that's okay.
Speaker 2: But who did you work with? Production ones?
Speaker 4: I did two songs with Jeff Tweety, okay, and those
Speaker 4: were awesome, and then the rest I just sort of
Speaker 4: did it in New York. I've been doing these collaborations
Speaker 4: and trying to release singles lately just to stay inspired
Speaker 4: and not have to do like a whole album cycle.
Speaker 4: And in the process of doing all these I got
Speaker 4: all these extra tracks that I loved, and so they
Speaker 4: all kind of fit together.
Speaker 2: And that's just to do a bunch of one off singles,
Speaker 2: and yeah.
Speaker 4: I have been doing I have been trying to just
Speaker 4: like collaborate with people I love, like like doing that
Speaker 4: Billy Joel thing was so cool, but it was still
Speaker 4: a commitment because it was a whole album. So I've
Speaker 4: been trying to do just one song with people. I
Speaker 4: did one with Tank, you know, Tank from the Bengus
Speaker 4: and Jeff Tweety. We did a couple and these two
Speaker 4: songs on this album are from that session too. I
Speaker 4: just had all these extra songs from these sessions, so all.
Speaker 2: Right, well, I mean in terms of Do you still
Speaker 2: feel that the the date will still get honored or I.
Speaker 4: Think we pushed it to June? Okay, yeah, you know
Speaker 4: it's funny. I feel like people are home, maybe they
Speaker 4: want something to listen to, but I think everybody's watching
Speaker 4: that Flix, so it's okay.
Speaker 2: What are you? What are you watching?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What have you binged out on?
Speaker 4: Oh? A lot of Barbie Dream House?
Speaker 2: So what your kids are watching?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Basically I don't have any control. It's funny.
Speaker 2: I four to seven. Your kids are in the house.
Speaker 4: Oh god, they do. And every night they go to
Speaker 4: sleep and then I'm like, cool, I'm going to watch something. Nope,
Speaker 4: I'm asleep.
Speaker 2: I see, I see. I feel you.
Speaker 4: Have you watched Last Man on Earth?
Speaker 2: The sitcom?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: With what's his name? I love that show to death.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love that show so much. I'm so sad
Speaker 4: when it stopped. I know every night I think I'm
Speaker 4: going to rewatch Last Man on Earth. Right now it
Speaker 4: feels like the right moment.
Speaker 2: But I'm one of those people that when I commit
Speaker 2: to a series and I know it's going to be over,
Speaker 2: I never watched the last three, Like my pen ultimate
Speaker 2: is always like the last three or four. So even
Speaker 2: with my modern family, which as a completist, I feel
Speaker 2: like I have to watch the last season, even though
Speaker 2: kind of Wayne Dalf thatf there's season nine. But I
Speaker 2: never like watching the last three episodes of a series
Speaker 2: when it's over. And really, yeah, I loved I loved
Speaker 2: Last Man on Earth, and I kind of feel like
Speaker 2: that's my reality right now.
Speaker 4: Well, I know that's that's what reminded me of it
Speaker 4: for sure. Wait, so you didn't watch the last three?
Speaker 2: No, no, I did, Yes, I didn't watch. I didn't
Speaker 2: watch the last three yet.
Speaker 4: No, Oh, you should watch them. Now it's the time,
Speaker 4: is right.
Speaker 2: I hate goodbye? I mean I I don't know. It's
Speaker 2: like her you.
Speaker 4: Like having it hanging over your head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but now you're right, now is the time to
Speaker 2: do it because I've been watching. I made the mistake
Speaker 2: of watching that damn what do you call it? The
Speaker 2: Tiger King thing?
Speaker 4: Oh? I didn't watch that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I kind of want my nine hours back.
Speaker 4: Well, you were part of a movement. You were in
Speaker 4: it with the rest of.
Speaker 2: The world, every right, I mean everyone was part of
Speaker 2: the conversation. I was like, I felt fomo and I
Speaker 2: wanted you know. Okay, I want to watch it too
Speaker 2: and now regret it. Yeah, so I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm going to finish Ozarks and oh yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Want to start that because I have never watched that.
Speaker 4: I was talking about that.
Speaker 2: Okay, so does in my opinion, does okay, does Sopranos
Speaker 2: or The Wire or Breaking Bad mean anything to you?
Speaker 4: I watched all the Sopranos, I watched all of Breaking Bad. Okay,
Speaker 4: not watch all of the Wire.
Speaker 2: Okay, then this could easily be in fourth place. I mean,
Speaker 2: in my personal opinion, I feel like, oh, no doubt,
Speaker 2: no doubt. I mean, even one of the actresses has
Speaker 2: already won an Emmy for a performance. It's it's it's
Speaker 2: that level of.
Speaker 4: Darkness and sounds delicious.
Speaker 2: So that's that's my recommendation. Wait now, I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm taking away from creativity if I'm telling you to
Speaker 2: start binging.
Speaker 4: Out on tele I would I would love to have
Speaker 4: a show to binge on. I would love to. Okay,
Speaker 4: I'll write a song.
Speaker 2: But I see, I see, well, you know, I appreciate
Speaker 2: you for taking the time out to do this, and
Speaker 2: you too.
Speaker 4: Good to see you.
Speaker 2: Hopefully, I don't know, maybe you can, you know, broadcast
Speaker 2: from your crib? Do you do social media at all?
Speaker 4: No, it's it kind of terrorisfies me. I've started doing
Speaker 4: some live recordings and putting them out during all this, right,
Speaker 4: and it's been fun. But I'm not good at like
Speaker 4: browsing the comments. It's no feel crazy.
Speaker 2: Never read the comments.
Speaker 4: Makes me feel crazy. I've tried to do. I tried
Speaker 4: to do Instagram a few years back, and I just
Speaker 4: felt like an idiot because I don't want to show
Speaker 4: pictures of my kids, but I don't want to fake
Speaker 4: it and pretend. So I just hated it. I couldn't
Speaker 4: I couldn't deal. And then I was thinking about, oh,
Speaker 4: what would be a good post. I'm like, Okay, that
Speaker 4: goes against the point. You either got to like just
Speaker 4: post whatever.
Speaker 2: Or or don't post what you're cooking. That's a that's
Speaker 2: a good place to start. No one, no one ever disagreement.
Speaker 4: Talks for lunch again.
Speaker 2: Yes, there you go. You should just start a hot
Speaker 2: dog account. Seriously, all right? Yeah, well, Nora, I appreciate you,
Speaker 2: thank you for your artistry, thank you for taking the
Speaker 2: time out. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This has been
Speaker 2: quest love Supreme. You have the team Supreme. I bid
Speaker 2: you do. Stay safe for everybody and we will see
Speaker 2: you on this story.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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