Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Ed O'Brien spent the last few decades crafting some of
Speaker 2: the most textured, expansive guitar and modern rock music, from
Speaker 2: the fragmented beauty of kid A and Amnesiac, to the
Speaker 2: experimental layers of King of Limbs, even back to the
Speaker 2: more straight ahead sounds on Okay Computer. Ed has expanded
Speaker 2: the guitar's palette, but over the last few years he's
Speaker 2: been exploring a universe parallel to Radiohead, one where he's
Speaker 2: at the center. Starting with Earth in twenty twenty, which
Speaker 2: he released under the moniker eo b and now with
Speaker 2: Blue Morpho under his birth name At O'Brien. As album's
Speaker 2: title hints, Ed found himself in a transformative period of
Speaker 2: the last six years, and not unlike the striking Butterfly
Speaker 2: the albums named after, came out the other side a new,
Speaker 2: perhaps even better person, with a gorgeous album to show
Speaker 2: for it. On today's Broken Record, Ed takes us through
Speaker 2: some of the journey of making this album, starting in solitude,
Speaker 2: playing guitar figures just for his own edification, through writing
Speaker 2: and eventually connecting with a crew of talented friends to
Speaker 2: bring the songs to life. Ed also discussed this evolution
Speaker 2: of his playing over time, the impact Brazil's had on
Speaker 2: a musically in which producer he wishes Radiohead had worked
Speaker 2: with in the nineties. This is broken record, real musicians,
Speaker 2: real conversations. Here's my interview with Ed O'Brien from Amazon
Speaker 2: Music Studio one twenty six. So I should have this
Speaker 2: test before you go.
Speaker 1: It's all good. I like that. Cool. Who's the that's
Speaker 1: the Burundi black Wow? Have you heard that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Sounds great?
Speaker 2: Cool?
Speaker 1: I put this together.
Speaker 2: It's the original comes from here.
Speaker 4: Wow, wow, wow, the Burundi drummers, Bruni drummers.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then you know about this point.
Speaker 5: Malcolm, you know, Malcolm McLaren, Malcolm McLaren and Adam and
Speaker 5: the ants.
Speaker 1: Adam and the ants.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's that's That's what McLaren said to Adam and
Speaker 5: the answer you got to take the Burundi bee and
Speaker 5: make put pop music on the top.
Speaker 2: And always wondered if Gary Glitter, Yeah, I mean did
Speaker 2: he get it from that?
Speaker 5: Because this is fucking glam this oh hey rough can roll.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's different, but it's it's not sampled and it's
Speaker 6: not white the bee, but even the hey similar tribal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5: He's of course persona non grata in the UK. Yeah,
Speaker 5: discussing great records, that's but the sound, right, sound is great, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I thought was really corny growing up, and I was
Speaker 2: going to like, you know, whatever games or whatever and
Speaker 2: they would play that.
Speaker 5: But can you truck swede black suedead or black skinnhead skinhead?
Speaker 1: That's obviously he was listening to.
Speaker 5: Well, there's something going on there across pollination with Gary
Speaker 5: Glitter and.
Speaker 1: I think he did. I think he just sampled it.
Speaker 1: He just sampled it. My oh did he probably? Pretty
Speaker 1: of course is wrong. Yeah, and Johnny Mitchell did it too.
Speaker 1: Did you ever hear that? No? Was she sampled that?
Speaker 1: She she just tooked?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she sampled it, actually Gary Glitter, not Gary Glitter. Burundi,
Speaker 2: the Burundi did what was that? He's in a summer line?
Speaker 2: She did it on on jungle line.
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 6: So wal sound true?
Speaker 1: Why so beautiful? It's really why this album is why.
Speaker 4: Through ibs, I need.
Speaker 5: To listen to this record. Yeah you'll you'll dig it
Speaker 5: here sing the summer loans. Yeah, I don't know, I
Speaker 5: know of it, but I don't know it's.
Speaker 2: After I didn't really know it too well until recently.
Speaker 2: It's one of those records.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of records like that.
Speaker 2: Again, I love that, you know, I try and I try,
Speaker 2: and I try, and I don't know, and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden it, yeah, it opens up, opens up.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, it's amazing the gift of the music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which that happened for I was reading a bit
Speaker 2: you that happened for you a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, Zepplin didn't really even get.
Speaker 5: It until I remember we were it was that we
Speaker 5: were touring the Bends and I was living on my own.
Speaker 5: Came back for Christmas, finished that and I never heard
Speaker 5: let Zeppelin. And I had a girlfriend and she lived
Speaker 5: in Monmouth. I went to see her, and Monmouth is
Speaker 5: the studio where you know, Robert Plant used to live
Speaker 5: in Monmouth, and I think Zepplin recorded there, and I suddenly,
Speaker 5: suddenly Zepplin opened up because we were so tribal growing up.
Speaker 5: I was in like in the alternative goth Smith's and
Speaker 5: you know, in the eighties, the kids who were listening
Speaker 5: to Zepplin were all in tenim jackets, leather jackets, and
Speaker 5: you know, rockers and it was so you just didn't
Speaker 5: cross those lines, which was such a shame. And then
Speaker 5: Zeppelin opened up and I still I mean I love Zeppelin.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I understand Zeppelin in a way.
Speaker 5: I feel it like the spiritual element of Zeppelin, Like,
Speaker 5: I mean, is there a better big track ever than Kashmir?
Speaker 5: I mean, that's like that's a spiritual like that's a
Speaker 5: that's like a that is like a Himalayan track in
Speaker 5: terms of you know, a peek of musical and sonic power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's why I I re listened to
Speaker 2: that recently. I hadn't heard it in a long time,
Speaker 2: and it's just really bugged out.
Speaker 5: You know, that live version that they did when they
Speaker 5: played that one off gig the Alma Urtican, they did
Speaker 5: it the in London and two thousand and seven. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's fucking unbelievable. I dare I say. I think it's
Speaker 5: it's got a vibe, it's more powerful than the record. Really,
Speaker 5: it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable, you know, and you know, just yeah,
Speaker 5: what what a track.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's insane. I have to listen to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really good. I kind of avoided. I want.
Speaker 2: You know, I was young at that time, but I
Speaker 2: was like, man, maybe I can just like gets some money.
Speaker 1: And get out there and go see that or something.
Speaker 1: It was so it was insanely.
Speaker 2: I had a friend out here who won somehow won
Speaker 2: tickets through the radio and went like when a full
Speaker 2: trip that got flown out and why I was so jealous.
Speaker 1: I stopped talking on my things.
Speaker 5: And I wanted to go, but I didn't pull I
Speaker 5: didn't play the radio head card, which I probably should
Speaker 5: have in hindsights, was kind of reluctant to do that,
Speaker 5: and I should have done that. Yeah, maybe i'd still
Speaker 5: not got a ticket to know that that would have
Speaker 5: done anything.
Speaker 2: Well you know, I'm sure, well you know, and I
Speaker 2: wondered too to what degree and maybe you'll know more?
Speaker 2: And I didn't realize that the UK, because in America
Speaker 2: was definitely that segmented if you were into alternative music
Speaker 2: or punk or anything like that, or even like.
Speaker 1: Hip hop, like it was, it was hard to cross.
Speaker 2: Over into like things that felt more commercial or but
Speaker 2: I want to cut the other way too, Like for
Speaker 2: those guys if they were like, because the fuck about.
Speaker 5: Radio, I want it I'm sure it does. And I mean,
Speaker 5: I think, what's what I love about now? You know,
Speaker 5: a lot of people kind of it's very easy in
Speaker 5: the current age to be a naysayer about the culture
Speaker 5: of music and what's happening now. But I see in
Speaker 5: my kids and what I love is there's no such
Speaker 5: thing as a guilty pleasure. We grew up with this
Speaker 5: concept of a guilty pleasure, like I remember having to
Speaker 5: hide stuff yep, that I loved. But I remember when
Speaker 5: I was at university when Madonna Vogue came out and
Speaker 5: I was doing my finals and I was into the
Speaker 5: Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Pixies and the sort of semi
Speaker 5: hit the fact that I loved that song. But what's
Speaker 5: great now is that kids suggest like I like that,
Speaker 5: like that there's nothing that doesn't seem to be those divisions.
Speaker 2: There's really not, and there's a ton of benefit to that.
Speaker 2: D I think there's some drawbacks.
Speaker 1: What are they? That's interesting? What do you think the
Speaker 1: drawback to me is?
Speaker 2: You know, I thought about this recently when when like
Speaker 2: when recent Quentin Tarantino got in trouble for like shitting
Speaker 2: on a couple of actors recently, or was it Paul Dano,
Speaker 2: Paul Dana. Yeah, yeah, that was so cruol. It was cruel,
Speaker 2: but you know, a part of me I started thinking
Speaker 2: about it. Yeah, irrespective of what you think about Paul Dano,
Speaker 2: who I think was great and and there will be blood,
Speaker 2: but it's sort of like, you know, that's the thing
Speaker 2: about like Miles Davis.
Speaker 1: He used to do that. People just got people are.
Speaker 2: Fucking ground, You're frenzy, you know. And then I started
Speaker 2: thinking about.
Speaker 1: Do you think people are too nice? Maybe people, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to see that.
Speaker 2: But sometimes the job is to is to make it
Speaker 2: is to make it. It's to take a stand and
Speaker 2: to say how you feel, and to say how you feel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I get you.
Speaker 5: We were talking about this yesterday about music publications. When
Speaker 5: we grew up, we used to have these publications, these
Speaker 5: music mags called Enemy and Meloy Maker and Enemy was
Speaker 5: ruthless and they hated Radiyhead in the early day, so
Speaker 5: they called us a lily livid excuse of a rock band.
Speaker 5: Un quoting, but you know, you read that review and
Speaker 5: it had an impact and it was like it sharpened
Speaker 5: your acting a bit. You go like fuck, okay, fuck
Speaker 5: you all we're going showy. So yeah, there was definitely
Speaker 5: a little bit of nihlinis or just speaking the truth.
Speaker 5: You're right, I think a lot of people are. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's finding that balance. I think you can. I think
Speaker 1: you can what.
Speaker 5: I found for me, I like to speak the truth,
Speaker 5: but I like speaking truth with kindness because you know
Speaker 5: you can also, you know, like Miles as Miles, he
Speaker 5: grew up in a toughest, toughest ear right, so he
Speaker 5: has no it's like only the fittest survive, you know,
Speaker 5: in this and there's something to that, but also you
Speaker 5: can lose people along the way, and you know, it's like,
Speaker 5: I'm really into sport, particularly soccer, and the generation of
Speaker 5: soccer players now, they're not like thirty years ago, which
Speaker 5: you had that fittest survive and it was tough. The
Speaker 5: great managers very much like I think they follow people
Speaker 5: like your man Phil Jackson who coached the Bulls, right,
Speaker 5: they know how to mass sorry, but they they're more
Speaker 5: enlightened and they go, Okay, that guy needs that, that
Speaker 5: girl needs that, you know, and and I kind of
Speaker 5: quite like that. I like, I like that we've kind
Speaker 5: of moved on a little bit more, but having said that,
Speaker 5: you know, it was funny, it was, but you can
Speaker 5: bring people down, and I listen, I'm one of those
Speaker 5: people as well. I need you know, I grew up
Speaker 5: in a tough love era, but actually I thrive more
Speaker 5: when I'm given a bit more support. And in my
Speaker 5: own music, I need that. I need, I need to
Speaker 5: know I can do it.
Speaker 2: That I'm the same way, the same way, so I
Speaker 2: struggle as well. Yeah, and I think the trade offs
Speaker 2: are largely probably worth it, you know, but I do,
Speaker 2: I do think about that. I'm like, I just probably
Speaker 2: sometimes you know, like the gate the idea of there
Speaker 2: being no gatekeepers now sometimes is a.
Speaker 1: Little like, you know, we're Gonnam again. Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe some things that you get through that
Speaker 1: should have. But I mean, thank god he was there,
Speaker 1: thank god, you're right, You're right, we do. Yeah, it's true,
Speaker 1: mo Astin.
Speaker 5: It's like old guys, all those guys, Chris Blackwell, Island Records,
Speaker 5: all these people like real music music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I kind of missed that. Yeah, we'll be
Speaker 1: back with more from Ed O'Brien.
Speaker 2: Speaking of kind of harsh critics, I guess I didn't
Speaker 2: realize until just today that John Peele wasn't really I
Speaker 2: was going to ask you about John Peel, but then
Speaker 2: I found out he wasn't so supportive.
Speaker 5: No, we weren't his kind of band. But then I
Speaker 5: remember a story when we played Glastonbury in eight ninety seven.
Speaker 5: We headlined Glastonbury on the Saturday night, which was sort
Speaker 5: of is on the Okay Compute right the start the
Speaker 5: Okay Compute, and he traditionally did the He did like
Speaker 5: the TV and radio that went out, and one of
Speaker 5: the DJs, Mary Anne Hobbs, who's sort of always been
Speaker 5: a champion of the band, she and him were watching
Speaker 5: that performance and he said he said afterwards to her,
Speaker 5: he said, oh, I think I need to revisit Radiohead.
Speaker 5: And we were really keen when kid A came out.
Speaker 5: We were like, please can Peel play? And I think
Speaker 5: Peel did. We never got to do a visit to
Speaker 5: peel Acres, which we never did a Peel session. You
Speaker 5: didn't do a session, no, because I think we would
Speaker 5: have subsequently, but he died. But I think that we
Speaker 5: were just not you know. The first album was a
Speaker 5: bit confusing for a lot of people, not the least us,
Speaker 5: and we were on a major label. He always gravitated
Speaker 5: towards independent labels, and we had a monster hitting creeps,
Speaker 5: so that kind of were immediately no not having that.
Speaker 1: So it took us a lot. It was just I.
Speaker 5: Think we just kept on knocking at the door and
Speaker 5: you know, but we could have got in there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but that's okay.
Speaker 2: Was the first record confusing because it was such a
Speaker 2: hit out the gate and that was confusing.
Speaker 1: No, it was confusing.
Speaker 5: Well, there was that. I mean that was a blessing
Speaker 5: obviously in hindsight, because I think otherwise we would have
Speaker 5: been dropped. It was we just didn't know what we
Speaker 5: were doing. That kind of the level of commitment and
Speaker 5: what it took to the level of seriousness that it
Speaker 5: required to to do what we were doing. And I think,
Speaker 5: I think inevitably, I mean, some some bands come straight
Speaker 5: some artists come straight out of the box, right, but
Speaker 5: we were one that we were still trying to It's
Speaker 5: trying to find our voice collectively and also Tom lyrically,
Speaker 5: I think it was trying to find his voice. So
Speaker 5: we we hadn't we hadn't got our ship together, and
Speaker 5: it's just a those things can take it just to
Speaker 5: take a bit of time, and and you need people
Speaker 5: to sort of knock you down to to find find
Speaker 5: the way as well. You need to you need to
Speaker 5: find a robustness. And you need to look at a
Speaker 5: few photo shoots you've done and go like, we look
Speaker 5: really crap, and you go, okay, we need to we
Speaker 5: need to hear black you know all that.
Speaker 1: Stuff because you're just saying yes to things.
Speaker 5: Well yeah, and you don't know what you're doing, and
Speaker 5: so you you you make these mistakes very publicly, and
Speaker 5: as long as you learn from them and evolve from them,
Speaker 5: that's fine. It's the you know, so I think we
Speaker 5: did and we just worked really hard. It made us
Speaker 5: knuckle down even more so the second album comes along,
Speaker 5: it's like okay, because people said we were one the
Speaker 5: hit Wonders and in a way that album is it
Speaker 5: kind of is that. And we were like, well, right,
Speaker 5: every single song on this next album is going to
Speaker 5: be it's going to be a tune. Yeah, And it was,
Speaker 5: thank you, well it was you know.
Speaker 2: You know, you're talking about kind of finding yourselves as
Speaker 2: a band. I'm curious about finding yourself as a guitar player.
Speaker 2: Leading up to talking about your new record, If you
Speaker 2: had to look back at the various eras of your
Speaker 2: Plane from the beginning when you first pick it up
Speaker 2: to now, can do you see distinct eras in your plane?
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5: I mean the first album is really it's very simple.
Speaker 5: I mean, we had a we had a we had
Speaker 5: a if you like, a formula which was quiet versus
Speaker 5: and loud choruses. So the loud choruses meant that all
Speaker 5: three of us, Tom, Johnny and myself would stamp on
Speaker 5: distortion pedals and the verses would be minimal. And also
Speaker 5: I think in a way that it was very much
Speaker 5: it was in a way supporting my role in that
Speaker 5: was very simple. I didn't play leads, so it was
Speaker 5: supporting Johnny in that respect, and it was that was
Speaker 5: the thing that I always for me, it was a
Speaker 5: little bit one dimensional, you know, in terms of my
Speaker 5: own playing, and it was that's the kind of music
Speaker 5: we were doing then. I mean, there's a track on
Speaker 5: their Blowout which I played some got a sound and
Speaker 5: that's when I first sort of got a crazy sound
Speaker 5: or a sound that was different and sort of riffed
Speaker 5: on that, and I remember it was on It was
Speaker 5: really on the second album. It started to open up
Speaker 5: with me. We were sort of more interested in you know,
Speaker 5: you get bored of things, so that that guitar distorted
Speaker 5: onslaught became something we used less and less.
Speaker 1: We still used it, but it.
Speaker 5: Wasn't as it was just we were more interested in
Speaker 5: textures and sounds, and that for me was really I
Speaker 5: remember we worked on Planet Telex and those guitar sounds
Speaker 5: were all things that I programmed. I had, you know,
Speaker 5: I had a RAQ unit, a cool rack unit, and
Speaker 5: so I was really into that. And then you know,
Speaker 5: Okay Computer, for me, it really flowered and it What
Speaker 5: was interesting about that was that because when you're playing clubs,
Speaker 5: that kind of quiet verse, loud chorus thing with distorted
Speaker 5: guitars works really well.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, bang, it's in.
Speaker 5: Your face where you start getting more successull you and
Speaker 5: playing bigger venues. And I remember, by the time we're
Speaker 5: touring ninety six, between the Benz and Okay Computer, I mean,
Speaker 5: we did these shows in Canada that were essentially our
Speaker 5: first arena shows, and these songs that kind of thing
Speaker 5: doesn't work so well, and we were sound checking stuff
Speaker 5: off Okay Computer, like let Down, and suddenly, you know,
Speaker 5: a delayed clean, delayed guitar sounded so beautiful in these
Speaker 5: bigger spaces. So I think the sound developed as the
Speaker 5: venues changed. And because we always wrote to Didney material,
Speaker 5: that was always the point, Like sound checks, just to
Speaker 5: alleviate the boredom of the road and playing the same songs.
Speaker 5: We would sound check new songs and we would also
Speaker 5: play them in the set, so as the venues got bigger,
Speaker 5: we could use the acoustics of the room. And for me,
Speaker 5: that's when it really you know, I think for me, okay,
Speaker 5: computer at the moment, I really felt like as a guitarist,
Speaker 5: I was sort of finding my stride. I think it
Speaker 5: was very obvious what Johnny did from in a very
Speaker 5: early stage of this incredible lead, this powerful lead thing,
Speaker 5: and you know, he was able to do stuff that
Speaker 5: I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that, stuff that wasn't in me. I didn't.
Speaker 5: I just didn't do it. But as we changed, like
Speaker 5: I became just sort of obsessed with sound, and it
Speaker 5: just sort of developed from there, and and you know,
Speaker 5: and nikid A was another leap, and then you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: it was it's been great. It's it was great sort
Speaker 5: of laboratory in The great thing about Radiohead was it was,
Speaker 5: you know, the.
Speaker 1: Weirder, the sounds, more encouragement you got, yeah, from from
Speaker 1: from from everybody, you know.
Speaker 5: And it was always trying to I mean lots of
Speaker 5: the weird sounds never got in, but it was trying
Speaker 5: to get this stuff sounded. I mean, I I've always
Speaker 5: loved sound. I I you know, you realize what makes
Speaker 5: you tick and sound is something that I Sound for
Speaker 5: me is very visual, you know, and when I connect
Speaker 5: with something, I connect sonically, but I connect it very visually.
Speaker 5: And that's what Yeah, that's what That's what floats my boat.
Speaker 1: Really did you always know that was? Was it always
Speaker 1: clear to you? That sound?
Speaker 5: It's interesting, Yeah, looking back, I mean like, why did
Speaker 5: I want to plick up the guitar? I mean, I
Speaker 5: heard the Beatles. I've you know, I've had amazing music
Speaker 5: exposed in the seventies through Top of the Pops, this British,
Speaker 5: this TV show, it's amazing weekly TV show. But it
Speaker 5: wasn't until I heard the Police and it was specifically
Speaker 5: the track Walking on the Moon by the and Andy
Speaker 5: Summon's guitar playing and the sound of the track has
Speaker 5: got this all, this reverbed and lay and it was suddenly.
Speaker 5: What I loved about it was that track sounded as
Speaker 5: if it was recorded on the moon. How I imagined
Speaker 5: it would be. I could feel like the moon, and
Speaker 5: so I think.
Speaker 1: It had that little Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: They did the Roland Space Echo famously, you know, and
Speaker 5: also the the Echoplex. Stuart Copeland put put delay on
Speaker 5: his drums the Space Echo believe, and Andy Summers had
Speaker 5: an his drums.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't know that, Yeah he did.
Speaker 5: He went there's a great I seen some lovely footage.
Speaker 5: They went to Manny's in New York and bought load again.
Speaker 5: He bought a Space Eco and you know Stui Copman's
Speaker 5: drumming with a Space Eco on it. Man, it was
Speaker 5: like killer. That's wild, Yeah, really wild. And he play
Speaker 5: in live, so he.
Speaker 1: Must have played differently. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5: But he had the monitor, you'd have it with him
Speaker 5: so in the studio, so he was actually the monitors
Speaker 5: it was coming through. So it's just extraordinary stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And of course they would got that through the reggae
Speaker 5: and the dub influence, you know, the space could being
Speaker 5: a really important part of the you know, dub and
Speaker 5: reggae Arsenal.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 5: It was Doze and then and then I was very
Speaker 5: lucky because I grew up in an era of post
Speaker 5: punk which was really so creative, and you had players
Speaker 5: like John McGeoch who was this He played with you
Speaker 5: know Magazine and Susie, you know, Susan the Banshie is great,
Speaker 5: you know Juju all the spell band and stuff like his.
Speaker 1: He was next level.
Speaker 5: And then he went on to play with Leiden and
Speaker 5: Pill and and all that stuff, and then.
Speaker 1: We played Republic. Yeah, he I think he.
Speaker 5: Joined he was in a band after after Susan Banchi's
Speaker 5: he went to he formed a band with Richard Johnson
Speaker 5: Jobs and from the Skids called The Armory Show not great.
Speaker 5: And then but then he joined Yeah, but then he
Speaker 5: joined an incarnation of Pill and he did there was
Speaker 5: that album is It with Happy on it and really good.
Speaker 1: It's like the really good. Yes it has it's like
Speaker 1: the is Everybody Happy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he played on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he played on that, and it's mcgi it's like
Speaker 5: classic mcgeal playing did.
Speaker 1: You ever get to did you ever? Susie and Susan.
Speaker 2: The band Shoes is a there's such a mystery to me,
Speaker 2: but I love them. Yeah, did you ever get to meet?
Speaker 2: And he passed away, but do you ever get to
Speaker 2: But I.
Speaker 5: Think Susie Tom said that when we did the shows,
Speaker 5: the radio shows last year, Susie, Susie came to the
Speaker 5: London show. I think she's friends with Tom. She's just
Speaker 5: the queen, the queen of punk.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, one of my favorites.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, and she and she did that had a beautiful
Speaker 5: you know she you know, graduated from the school of
Speaker 5: punk and went on this incredible, this incredible journey.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they again deeply creative. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So back to so sound turns And when you say
Speaker 2: sound is what.
Speaker 1: Does it for you? It's it's more tech. It's our
Speaker 1: music sound, but it's more it's the texture. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: texture and the texture of it.
Speaker 5: And I'm really I don't like I mean, one of
Speaker 5: the things on my album was I don't like I'm
Speaker 5: always trying to undigitize it. I don't like it when
Speaker 5: it's too clean. My particular on this record I had
Speaker 5: this I was really sort of kind of obsessed with
Speaker 5: that era of recording from about sixty eight sixty nine
Speaker 5: to seventy three seventy four, and particularly for me, what
Speaker 5: characterized that was you had the move from sort of analogue,
Speaker 5: but you were getting transistors in the amps and some
Speaker 5: of the components which gave you clearer top end. So
Speaker 5: I'm thinking in terms of recordings, So Miles in a
Speaker 5: silent way, you know, Minnie Riperton, any of the you know,
Speaker 5: Charles Stepney stuff. You know we were with earth Winder
Speaker 5: and Fire yesterday, were you yeah, oh yeah, they were
Speaker 5: here yesterday.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: I played them the demo that Charles Stepney did of
Speaker 2: That's the Way of the World, the Way of the World,
Speaker 2: That's where the world art like it was a Charles
Speaker 2: Stepney and I played there like kind of like they
Speaker 2: hadn't heard You're not way back then.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 2: Philip Bailey was like, I think you have like a
Speaker 2: like a Latin kind of flavor to it. And then
Speaker 2: like I put her eyes like, yeah, that's the thing
Speaker 2: I heard way back before we cut.
Speaker 8: It was it was well, they were like I mean,
Speaker 8: I mean, earth Wind and Father's There's there's a lot
Speaker 8: to say they were the greatest group ever, you know,
Speaker 8: and I know a lot of people say, like the
Speaker 8: Beatles were, but I would I would hit back with
Speaker 8: Earth Wind and Fire and Slim the Family Stone.
Speaker 2: You know something about those two three not too dissimilar
Speaker 2: either in just the like you know the greatest, you
Speaker 2: know they they they're like Stevie wonder maybe you.
Speaker 7: Wonder what you know?
Speaker 5: He was no listen, I was saying this just now
Speaker 5: at Casey, I w has ever been an artist who's
Speaker 5: had a greater run of albums than Stevie did from
Speaker 5: like sixty eight right through to Hotter Than July nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty Yeah, nobody.
Speaker 2: Had people forget about how that's such believable.
Speaker 1: That is a killer unbelievable. I remember remember seeing what
Speaker 1: was a single of it called there was Jamming, Jamming,
Speaker 1: Master Blasting, Master Blaster, Holy shit.
Speaker 5: When that was on top of the pops, I remember
Speaker 5: like and Stevie had the dreads with the beads. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and like like I didn't know all of Stevie's I
Speaker 5: was a kid, so I didn't know Stevie's stuff before that.
Speaker 5: But you know, I remember actually the joy of discovering
Speaker 5: Stevie like in properly in nineteen ninety two, and like
Speaker 5: in a vision what talking about for you know, first fulfilling,
Speaker 5: this first finale. You know, it's just unbelievable. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean I think in terms of bands though, yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean Sly and Earth When Fire and the Beatles,
Speaker 5: like I mean just you know, take your pick on
Speaker 5: whatever mood or day you want.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And that's it, not just because you're here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: radioheard Mike's slipping there somewhere.
Speaker 1: It may not have been long enough. We could see
Speaker 1: lists the d list of that lot. I take that
Speaker 1: as long as.
Speaker 2: But there's a there's a similarity that I guess the
Speaker 2: parallels would be really tight. I don't even if you
Speaker 2: say that, but just really great songs, just great song
Speaker 2: like just song songs seem to come first. And then
Speaker 2: I mean not I was talking to about that yesterday
Speaker 2: is because yeah, it's like the arrangements were so wild
Speaker 2: on Earth Win five songs, but the songs did not
Speaker 2: get lost ever. Like you were, you knew, even as
Speaker 2: a lay person, you knew exactly what was happening and
Speaker 2: where it was going. But but there was something way
Speaker 2: crazy happening underneath. And that's the Beatles, that's Sly, that's.
Speaker 5: That, and then you know the other ingredient family that
Speaker 5: we're all family, you know, like my radio heads Bander Brothers,
Speaker 5: Sly family, Stone family, Yeah, Earth Wind and Fire family.
Speaker 5: How many whites you know their family they become families
Speaker 5: and light families. They argue when they do all of that,
Speaker 5: But there's a lot of love and I think that
Speaker 5: I think that is because music is magic. You know
Speaker 5: that the medium we work in is it's there's you know,
Speaker 5: as Quincy Jones used to say, like you know, you
Speaker 5: wait for God to walk through the room, you know,
Speaker 5: and there is that and that's what there's the magic
Speaker 5: of that. How do you summon God? Well, first we
Speaker 5: have to work hard. Spirit that's given. But the second thing,
Speaker 5: I think spirit comes through you when it can see
Speaker 5: the love. And the love doesn't have to be your
Speaker 5: or pally. The love is just it's there. It's like
Speaker 5: a it's a brotherhood, a sisterhood. Well, Maurice White, I mean, like,
Speaker 5: what was he trying to do? He was trying to
Speaker 5: make sacred music essentially right move shift the consciousness of
Speaker 5: the world. That's that's spirit. So we're all conduits. That
Speaker 5: band when they're in it, they're working as once. I mean,
Speaker 5: has there ever been a tighter band than than Earth
Speaker 5: Wind and Fire. They didn't have any click tracks and
Speaker 5: they're in it, but they were co creating with spirit,
Speaker 5: so I think and the Beatles, you know, definitely were
Speaker 5: as well. I think there's that element is as I
Speaker 5: understand it kind of from the inside.
Speaker 1: That's a huge part.
Speaker 5: Of Now my brother's in the band mic what you're
Speaker 5: talking about, you know, But that's what I feel, and
Speaker 5: that's kind of I know.
Speaker 2: I feel this is a really good I hate I hate,
Speaker 2: I hate segues that are too good, but incantations is
Speaker 2: the first.
Speaker 1: Then I feel like we should listen a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everything.
Speaker 9: It consur fe.
Speaker 7: And the Gurse of Lonagol.
Speaker 1: And all these you're so learning from it.
Speaker 7: All and a fall day falling to condo the whole.
Speaker 3: And with the.
Speaker 1: I can't feel anything at all. Cool Chang.
Speaker 9: Conditions up so conditions, the Joe in conditions up so contitions, man,
Speaker 9: the Joe.
Speaker 1: Good sun nice sum on. That system is great. It
Speaker 1: sounds so good. I'm hearing stuff. Yeah, I'm hearing stuff
Speaker 1: I didn't hear before.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Stream it's amazing, man, Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Talk about textures. There's all kinds of texture there's so
Speaker 2: much that's the rain that did. The dynamism of that
Speaker 2: is wild. How did how did that song come about?
Speaker 5: That comes That was when the sort of the the
Speaker 5: first shoots of this album were really from a very
Speaker 5: dark place and I fell into this this sort of
Speaker 5: very dark depression, which I sort of reframed it and
Speaker 5: it was like a dark knight of the soul. And
Speaker 5: that was one of the songs. During this process. One
Speaker 5: of the things I did. I had a daily practice
Speaker 5: which was literally just pick up my guitar and play.
Speaker 5: Go to this little room. It was in the second lockdown,
Speaker 5: and I played for three hours and I was just therapy.
Speaker 5: And that was one of the songs. One of the
Speaker 5: musical motifs or the cyclical guitar riff sort of emerged
Speaker 5: in one of these sittings, and when I heard it,
Speaker 5: I was like, Oh, that's that's the place that I
Speaker 5: am it. I felt like I was in this labynth.
Speaker 5: I was stuck in this labyrinth. I didn't know how
Speaker 5: to get out this place. And you know the story
Speaker 5: of the Greek myth of Theseus and the minutur and
Speaker 5: Theseus gets thrown in the labyrinth, and which is this
Speaker 5: maze that was constructed by King Minos of crete Midas
Speaker 5: of crete, and there was a beast in there, and
Speaker 5: in order to get out he had to slay the beast,
Speaker 5: but you get lost. So nobody had got out, and
Speaker 5: the king's daughter had fallen in love with him, and
Speaker 5: her name was I think her name was Ariadne, and
Speaker 5: Ariadney had this thread that she gave to theseus as
Speaker 5: he was descended down and so he had to follow
Speaker 5: this thread out, but on the way he also had
Speaker 5: to slay the minu tour this half man, half beast.
Speaker 5: So that was literally so that it's funny with music.
Speaker 5: What I've kind of what I think is extraordinary about
Speaker 5: the medium music is that, you know, music is essentially maths.
Speaker 5: It's mathematical intervals in patterns, and that this music can
Speaker 5: come out of you or it's you know, I don't
Speaker 5: know how it happens, and it somehow manages to capture
Speaker 5: the emotion of where you are at that time. So
Speaker 5: that was a really dark place and for me that
Speaker 5: was always the opener of the album. And you know,
Speaker 5: the whole idea of Incantations was I had this feeling
Speaker 5: that I spend a lot of time in Wales, in
Speaker 5: our houses in Wales, and it's in the hills there,
Speaker 5: and it's it's it's very wild countryside, it's very ancient,
Speaker 5: and there's a power in this land.
Speaker 1: You can feel it.
Speaker 5: And I had this image of, like, so a lot
Speaker 5: of the time I go walking in the in these
Speaker 5: ancient old trails, like thousands of years old, and you
Speaker 5: could feel it. But I could feel the power of
Speaker 5: the land, and I felt that was healing me. So
Speaker 5: I felt incantations are like spells and ancient. You know,
Speaker 5: it's very Celtic, a lot of you know, Celtic spirituality.
Speaker 5: They invoked spirit and and my image was of that
Speaker 5: Shakespeare play Macbeth the Three, which is around the cauldron
Speaker 5: in this wood, and the cauldron's bubbling and there's a
Speaker 5: fire and they're they're they're delivering spells a toil toll,
Speaker 5: bubble and trouble. And I had this thing of like,
Speaker 5: the earth is going to heal me, you know, She's
Speaker 5: gonna heal me. And so that's that's what I was
Speaker 5: sort of throwing into the mix of this dark place,
Speaker 5: and it was, yeah, it's sort of you know, it's
Speaker 5: funny how these things emerge, and it wasn't a conscious thing.
Speaker 5: I wasn't like the thing about this record was it
Speaker 5: wasn't I wasn't controlling it in a way. It just
Speaker 5: comes out. And my job was to not get in
Speaker 5: the way. My job was what is this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I didn't know what. I knew where.
Speaker 5: I kind of didn't know where we were starting, and
Speaker 5: I didn't know where we were finished. But I knew
Speaker 5: when we were finished, you know, I knew it was that, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is But that was what's so beautiful about this
Speaker 5: whole process was just letting go what is this?
Speaker 2: So? But it started with just you in a room, yeah,
Speaker 2: and a guitar, and it slowly became a little more.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It really got to a stage where and I was
Speaker 5: working with Paul Epworth and Riley McIntyre, and Paul's a
Speaker 5: brilliant co writer, and so we would sort of work
Speaker 5: stuff up in my studio and in his studio, the
Speaker 5: three of us, and then it gets to a time
Speaker 5: when I need to get musicians in. I need to
Speaker 5: get a band in. So my great he's my brother,
Speaker 5: David Kumu. He's a solo artist in his own right.
Speaker 5: He played on my first record. I've known him for
Speaker 5: a while. I went to see his band play at
Speaker 5: the Roundhouse in London. His band the Seven Gens, David Koman,
Speaker 5: the Seven Generations, Seven Gens.
Speaker 1: And it was mesmeric and I.
Speaker 5: Saw and it was just at the time that we
Speaker 5: were I think I need to get a band together,
Speaker 5: and finding a musical family is not easy, right yeah,
Speaker 5: And I was like, okay, so it's like, Dave, can
Speaker 5: you put a band together?
Speaker 1: And he said, how about the Seven Gens? I said,
Speaker 1: I'm in.
Speaker 5: So these incredible players, Eve Fernandez on bass, Dancy on drums,
Speaker 5: Crispin Fryn percussion, Nick Rahm on keys, and Esca who
Speaker 5: became She's she's a vocalist for Dave as well. She
Speaker 5: became a really important part of the whole project. So
Speaker 5: I sort of borrowed his family and we had three
Speaker 5: days of recording and it was just kind of a
Speaker 5: utopian recording experience. These guys are so good and they
Speaker 5: got the vibers of the song we would.
Speaker 1: I remember that song.
Speaker 5: Was the first song we did and we so I
Speaker 5: think we did it on a Monday. Everybody gets when
Speaker 5: we start playing eleven And I remember Riley because I.
Speaker 1: Kind of primed it.
Speaker 5: I said, listen, and he knew the musical references. I said,
Speaker 5: I want it to sound like you know, I want
Speaker 5: it to sound like that ear A sixty eight seventy three.
Speaker 5: I don't want to sound too digitu it's not be clean.
Speaker 5: I kept on sing, there's you know this is there's
Speaker 5: got to be dirt under the fingernails here. You've got
Speaker 5: to feel the earth, you know, you got to feel that,
Speaker 5: you know, you got to feel the saturation. I was
Speaker 5: really influenced you know who does it obviously really well
Speaker 5: Inflow and Danger Mouse, all the work they did with
Speaker 5: Michael Kiwanuka. Right, I love the saturate. I love the
Speaker 5: sound of those records, great records. Right, And so Riley knew,
Speaker 5: and so remember just we've gone through a couple of
Speaker 5: takes and just you know, settled down, everyone have a
Speaker 5: cup of tea, and Riley played mer Monitormis. I was like, shit, okay,
Speaker 5: we've got the sound. The playing's good. It was amazing.
Speaker 5: And then Paul's studio, which is which is an old church,
Speaker 5: yeah a holy space was just kind of magic.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's an old it's an old church. That he yeah,
Speaker 1: he always properly.
Speaker 2: We know.
Speaker 5: It's in crouch End in London. It was originally owned
Speaker 5: by Dave Stewart of the Rhythmics. He owned it and
Speaker 5: then and actually Radiohead we recorded some voc computer in
Speaker 5: there back in ninety seven and then he sold it
Speaker 5: to David Gray and then Paul bought it off David Gray.
Speaker 5: I don't know in about twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen when Paul,
Speaker 5: because Paul was a co you know, he worked with
Speaker 5: Adele and co wrote Rolling in the Deep and produced that.
Speaker 5: So he put all his good fortune into this amazing
Speaker 5: studio and that's got the best gear and has just
Speaker 5: made it this incredible space.
Speaker 1: Two studios there. And he came from Black Party. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 5: Paul came from that background, and then he found himself
Speaker 5: to be he like was was producing Florence and Machine Adele,
Speaker 5: you know, and then went on he became like the
Speaker 5: A list producer, yeah, you know, and went down and
Speaker 5: plowed that furrow for a while.
Speaker 2: It must have been nice to get back to this
Speaker 2: a little bit, but yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Think it was good.
Speaker 5: You know. What was lovely. What was lovely about it
Speaker 5: was we connected. I mean, you know, when I worked
Speaker 5: with Paul. I wasn't working with him because he was
Speaker 5: the A list producer. I work with people. I realized this.
Speaker 5: I work with people that I love, you know, I
Speaker 5: can't do it with people I don't love.
Speaker 1: Why Why Because it's such.
Speaker 5: A personal thing making you spend so much time with them.
Speaker 5: And I'm just like one of those people. I'm I'm
Speaker 5: I'm a heart person. So Paul and I connected, you know,
Speaker 5: you know those moments in life when you talk to somebody.
Speaker 5: We spoke on the phone before we'd ever met. We
Speaker 5: were we're often running for an hour and it's like
Speaker 5: a it's like a soul connection, and so I think
Speaker 5: it was great for both of us. It was great
Speaker 5: for me because he's an incredible songwriter, so it was
Speaker 5: great to bounce stuff ideas off him and he you know,
Speaker 5: he he sold Fajio, the track sol Fegio. He started that,
Speaker 5: he initiated that. So it was really you know, because
Speaker 5: when you work on when you're a solo artist, you
Speaker 5: need you need people to riff with that. The more
Speaker 5: ideas the better. So yeah, it was really amazing working
Speaker 5: with him.
Speaker 1: Did it ever, did you ever find it getting too far.
Speaker 2: From where you wanted it and you had to move
Speaker 2: a back or I don't know.
Speaker 5: I didn't know where we were going. So I was
Speaker 5: embracing it all and it was very much, very much
Speaker 5: and used that word leaning into, but I'm really leaning
Speaker 5: into serendipity and synchronosity because I have a I have
Speaker 5: a very strong spiritual practice, and.
Speaker 1: What's beautiful about this journey is.
Speaker 5: That I have this utter conviction and I know that
Speaker 5: you have everything around you, were given everything around you
Speaker 5: in order to evolve. You have all the circumstances, all
Speaker 5: the things to give. So when you meet people in chance,
Speaker 5: seemingly chance happenings or occurrences you know are given to you,
Speaker 5: there's often things there. So I really leant into that,
Speaker 5: and if the music wanted to take a left term,
Speaker 5: we just followed that and I didn't worry. What I
Speaker 5: was good about was I would flag out. I would say, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm not feeling this, but again, what's been really I
Speaker 5: had Again, one of the things I learned on this
Speaker 5: record was in the past and certainly where I've come from,
Speaker 5: if you flag up saying I'm not feeling this, the
Speaker 5: the onus is to find a solution and go I'm
Speaker 5: not feeling this, but we.
Speaker 1: Should do this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I I was just like, I was like,
Speaker 5: not into that. I'm not feeling this, but I don't
Speaker 5: know what to do and leaving the space that you
Speaker 5: don't know, you don't have the answer because I think
Speaker 5: the ego wants to go I know how to sort
Speaker 5: this out. This is what we do, this is the
Speaker 5: way forward. But what I do is I would just like,
Speaker 5: I'll go, Paul.
Speaker 1: Riley, I don't know why.
Speaker 5: I'm just not feeling this. And it's almost everyone can
Speaker 5: tell in the room and you go, well, I don't know,
Speaker 5: And what was so amazing was within and how you'd
Speaker 5: found the solution. But the solution, like the riff that emerges,
Speaker 5: it comes through you. So it's what I feel like
Speaker 5: it is is you're leaving room for spirit to go, Okay,
Speaker 5: I've got the solution and you just pick it up
Speaker 5: and say, okay, it's that. So it's all part of
Speaker 5: the process of letting go. And I that for me
Speaker 5: is why I mean I've gone up another love in
Speaker 5: creativity and recording because the less I know I feel,
Speaker 5: the richer it becomes, or the less import or the
Speaker 5: less I have solutions. I just it's like, oh, it
Speaker 5: wants to go this way, and I love that because
Speaker 5: that's where you get surprises rather than like imposing your
Speaker 5: own rigid idea of what it should be. I'm not
Speaker 5: into that. I like, I don't know what this is.
Speaker 5: Let's see what it is. You have the things that
Speaker 5: you resonate with, like you point out, like I love
Speaker 5: this sound, and you know, and we did a whole thing,
Speaker 5: spend a couple of days like listening to music that
Speaker 5: you know from that era and also kiwanuukra and a
Speaker 5: lot of salt stuff. We're going like I love this,
Speaker 5: I love the sound of that, and so you build
Speaker 5: up like a mood board of sounds and kind of
Speaker 5: flavors and then you go. But that, again is intuitive
Speaker 5: and what's intuition. It's like following another thread.
Speaker 1: So I.
Speaker 5: Really love that whole kind of I yeah, like I said,
Speaker 5: letting goes, it's just amazing.
Speaker 1: It's interesting listening to you talking. I'm realizing it. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking this through. I mean, art really is one of
Speaker 1: the few.
Speaker 2: Spaces in life where getting last virtual.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think, what you know, when I heard
Speaker 5: someone say a definition of an artist it's like it's
Speaker 5: really following your intuition. And I think that's so amazing
Speaker 5: because you know, the mind can go. What's so interesting,
Speaker 5: The mind will go. The mind is the some some
Speaker 5: parts of all your experiences. So your mind says you
Speaker 5: can do this, you can do that, you can't do that,
Speaker 5: so it's kind of limiting. But your intuition. I was
Speaker 5: this intuition though, and your mind can only see what's
Speaker 5: in front of you. The intuition can see around the bend,
Speaker 5: and the intuition can also see your your your arc,
Speaker 5: your journey of life. And I really believe that, and
Speaker 5: I think so the intuition goes, this might seem mad
Speaker 5: at this stage, but and you go and you double goat,
Speaker 5: but this feels really good. And that's what we must do.
Speaker 5: We must follow that thing. And we're like, I don't
Speaker 5: understand it, and it might not make sense now, but
Speaker 5: you can be sure if you do that at some
Speaker 5: later stage, it will makes sense. But what's also true
Speaker 5: about intuition, it's almost like a muscle that has to
Speaker 5: be used. So again, you have to look after your intuition.
Speaker 5: Your intuition needs it needs nurturing. And I've learned that
Speaker 5: over the years. There are things things you do and
Speaker 5: don't do that help sharpen your intuition, those which also
Speaker 5: dull it, you know, and blunt it.
Speaker 2: So what do you what do you how do you
Speaker 2: keep your intuition?
Speaker 5: Well, I think humility is a big part of that
Speaker 5: gratitude for my spiritual practice. Things to avoid drugs, you know,
Speaker 5: you know, cocaine and things like that. They're not great
Speaker 5: for your intuition. And you know, you again, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I don't know, I've met some I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, I've I've had some conversations.
Speaker 5: Well, the thing is when things going well, no, that's true,
Speaker 5: but yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, but it's it's not
Speaker 5: a long term solution. I think those things can be
Speaker 5: That's why people get into them. They go super quick
Speaker 5: and they're like wow, but it won't last. And so
Speaker 5: I think I think it's Yeah, for me, it's like
Speaker 5: and relying on it and taking time out and stillness.
Speaker 5: I think still that I have a strong meditative practice.
Speaker 5: So I think all these things and listening and kind
Speaker 5: of honoring as well what you feel and your truth.
Speaker 5: I think that's super important because it's like, rather than
Speaker 5: doing the shoulds. It's like, what do I feel? What
Speaker 5: do I really feel? And I think again, if you
Speaker 5: keep doing that with your intuition, then your intuition gets
Speaker 5: stronger and rewards you. And it's like builds it builds
Speaker 5: up its own confidence or it becomes stronger like a muscle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when do you think you learn this? Oh, that's
Speaker 1: a really good question.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: I've been on this spiritual journey. I've been on this journey.
Speaker 5: I call it spiritual journey. I've been on this journey
Speaker 5: like essentially it started off as a journey of healing
Speaker 5: and it's been going on since about two thousand and two.
Speaker 5: It's a really good I don't know, there was no
Speaker 5: Eureka moment, but on my journey on this on the healing,
Speaker 5: trying to heal myself and become a whole if you like,
Speaker 5: what I've found is it's a it's a it's just
Speaker 5: been a series of things that you do and you
Speaker 5: work out things that work for you, work don't work
Speaker 5: for you, and then it's just and it can be
Speaker 5: everything from nutrition to meditation to the people you hang
Speaker 5: out with. Being a good gate keeper, yoga, all these things.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, it's really interesting. So I don't
Speaker 5: think there was any moment. And you know, listen, I'm
Speaker 5: you know, someone could turn around and go that's bullshit,
Speaker 5: and I go, yeah, you're probably right. I don't, but
Speaker 5: I'm just I guess I'm a seeker. You seem like
Speaker 5: I'm a seeker. I'm definitely.
Speaker 1: Always.
Speaker 5: And like I remember like at school, like you know,
Speaker 5: we'd have these lectures when you're seventeen, you have every
Speaker 5: week you have visiting lectures, and you know, you'd have
Speaker 5: like we were in Oxford, so you'd have an Oxford.
Speaker 1: Academic and you'd have a lawyer.
Speaker 5: And then I remember one week there was this guy
Speaker 5: who came along and he was talking about Tibet and
Speaker 5: he was talking about spirituality and Buddhism, and all my.
Speaker 1: Mates are kind of like fucking hippie.
Speaker 5: This is like nineteen eighty five, and I'm like transfixed.
Speaker 5: And you know, there was this thing that if if
Speaker 5: you could go and have a coffee with a lecturer afterwards,
Speaker 5: and I was straight, and I was the only guy
Speaker 5: there and I was just like fascinated. So it's in
Speaker 5: my DNA. It's like I've always been. I've always loved
Speaker 5: I grew up in a so there was Oxford, but
Speaker 5: when my parents split up, we moved to West Oxfordshire
Speaker 5: and it's very old Britain. It's about two miles from
Speaker 5: this place called white Horse Hill, Uffington. White Horse, this
Speaker 5: beautiful chalk white Horse in the hill.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful image.
Speaker 5: It's the front of English settlement by xtc Oh because
Speaker 5: they were from Swindon just down the road. But it's
Speaker 5: an ancient part of Britain and Averbury's down the road.
Speaker 5: So I was always I was always drawn to I
Speaker 5: guess places, old power, nodes of power, spirit places, you know.
Speaker 5: So again I followed my intuition. And music's great for
Speaker 5: that because you know how many musicians. While we talked
Speaker 5: about led Zeppelin earlier, I mean that that's steeped in
Speaker 5: and you think it like you know, talking about earth
Speaker 5: wind and fire and so it's in this music. So
Speaker 5: I think it's a natural thing. So I'm just seeking.
Speaker 5: I'm just eyes open. And also about twenty years ago
Speaker 5: I did this thing. Where as I'm not going to
Speaker 5: let my creative or my critical faculty get in the
Speaker 5: way of anything because It's very easy to go, what
Speaker 5: are you doing that for? You come from Oxford, how
Speaker 5: can you empirically prove that you know? Where's the academic rigor?
Speaker 5: I let that go and I said, I'm going to
Speaker 5: read everything and anything, and I'm going to just see
Speaker 5: how it sits. And I'm going to experience stuff from
Speaker 5: being to Brazil to see healers and you know.
Speaker 1: All this stuff.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, Okay, I'm going to experience it and
Speaker 5: see how that feels, and then I'll decide, you know
Speaker 5: what do I resonate with so? And it just carries
Speaker 5: on so.
Speaker 1: And that goes back.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, you know, the Tibetan Buddhist guy
Speaker 2: giving the lecture at your university, the one thing university
Speaker 2: couldn't give you, but it wasn't supposed to give you,
Speaker 2: but it somehow did.
Speaker 5: It did that, you know, and it's so It's so brilliant.
Speaker 5: And what I love about life is that you realize
Speaker 5: you're given.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 5: I feel I've been given these little markers along the way,
Speaker 5: and they could be they could be the parents of
Speaker 5: a friend when you're growing up, who were the only
Speaker 5: bohemian couple that you knew who he was a writer
Speaker 5: and an artist and you you're going their house, and
Speaker 5: it was just like, oh my god, it can be
Speaker 5: like this family can be like this. So we're given
Speaker 5: all these little things. And yeah, like I said, I
Speaker 5: really sense that the universe gives each of us what
Speaker 5: we this, the circumstances. Well, certainly given me the circumstances
Speaker 5: in order to evolve and the things around me. It's
Speaker 5: my it's my decision whether my eyes and ears are
Speaker 5: open to that stuff.
Speaker 2: Amazing you brought up Brazil, so we should maybe go
Speaker 2: to but yeah, great. As I was listening to the
Speaker 2: I was listening to the record without looking at the titles.
Speaker 1: I was listening and I was like.
Speaker 2: Man, it's not like I said, did you Is there
Speaker 2: something Brazilian going on with this?
Speaker 1: And I looked at the title. Yeah, there we go,
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sunny days a Sunny Days, A Sunny Days a boy,
Speaker 3: Sunny days, Sunny days, Sunny days a boy.
Speaker 1: I said, that's got something.
Speaker 11: Should love to ride the sun.
Speaker 4: Serve me up from give you a ma me on.
Speaker 12: Every day, sent.
Speaker 7: Me singing heavenly excuse and so.
Speaker 11: And so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, forgive me for so many nice little so many
Speaker 1: nice touches. Thank you.
Speaker 5: It's nice to hear it on the big system atual.
Speaker 5: I haven't heard it that loud with lots.
Speaker 1: Of sub It's great. I love it.
Speaker 2: It's the the the groove is subtle, right, and then
Speaker 2: it opens up and it's just yeah, and it's it's
Speaker 2: full on, you know, at that point it's done.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: And then all the nice little little synth that was
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 5: Right there and Selena strings rather yeh because yeah, and
Speaker 5: who was.
Speaker 2: That singing in the ka?
Speaker 5: Okay, she's amazing. She's gonna be We're all gonna go
Speaker 5: out on tour. Esca and Davey play guitar, and yeah,
Speaker 5: she's she's just a beautiful singer.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when are you guys going out?
Speaker 5: We're gonna go out in October in Europe and hopefully,
Speaker 5: you know, you know, economics dependently, but we we've got
Speaker 5: to come. I mean, having spent like two days in La,
Speaker 5: I'm like, I want to come to La and play.
Speaker 1: This let's book it tonight.
Speaker 5: I want to a party and I want to get
Speaker 5: the vibe and you know, I feel like it'd be
Speaker 5: such a great place to come here, you know, the
Speaker 5: connections and you know, meeting people like yourself. It's like
Speaker 5: there's a there's a it feels like it's open. It's
Speaker 5: it's got the sadness, but it's got the joy in
Speaker 5: there as well.
Speaker 2: Well, not to get the real but it's interesting.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Bad will towards Los Angeles lately for some reason, and
Speaker 2: living here, I don't feel it, you know, So it's weird.
Speaker 2: I hear it a lot, you know, I hear it.
Speaker 1: Well, people love people get jeallessedty pretty great. They're jealous.
Speaker 1: People are leaving here though I don't know the alous
Speaker 1: see people.
Speaker 2: From here are leaving here? Wow or brogat? I mean
Speaker 2: did that come? Did that come from a visit to Brazil.
Speaker 2: You've mentioned spending some time there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in Brazil and
Speaker 5: I love Brazilian music, and we went to live there
Speaker 5: in my family. We went to live there for about
Speaker 5: six seven months a few years ago. It's always been
Speaker 5: there and for me, it's the whole thing about Brazil.
Speaker 5: It's the people, it's the land, it's the music, it's
Speaker 5: the soccer, it's the love, it's the spirituality, it's the dance.
Speaker 1: It's the and it's a tough place to live. You know,
Speaker 1: there's poverties.
Speaker 5: You know, they've got real problems, economic problems in terms
Speaker 5: of the division of wealth. But you know, Lula and
Speaker 5: Dilma and the Workers Party have done amazing things in
Speaker 5: the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: So there's an emerging middle class. There's it's just a
Speaker 1: beautiful it's it's funny. It's one of those things. Have
Speaker 1: you ever been to Brazil?
Speaker 10: I have not.
Speaker 1: It's on top of my life. Well you should go.
Speaker 1: It's good.
Speaker 5: I also what I love it. It feels like every
Speaker 5: color under the sun. You know, you've got Japanese community.
Speaker 5: They've lived there for one hundred years and they're Japanese,
Speaker 5: but they're Brazilian and it's it's got you know, it's
Speaker 5: it's just beautiful.
Speaker 2: And they deal with the different than the states in
Speaker 2: England in terms of the diversity is dealt with different.
Speaker 5: And I remember, like I had had a when I
Speaker 5: first went to Brazil with my wife in like two
Speaker 5: thousand and we have to be on the same flight
Speaker 5: as a couple of friends. And one of my friends,
Speaker 5: this guy called Trevor, he's you know, he's black, British
Speaker 5: and he'd never been to Brazil. None of us have
Speaker 5: been to Brazil. And we were staying in the rear
Speaker 5: and five days later we bumped into them on Ipanema
Speaker 5: and we went for a drink and and Trevor's really
Speaker 5: and I said, Trevor, how you finally said, He said,
Speaker 5: I feel comfortable in my skin. Finally said, you know,
Speaker 5: even in Britain, you know, I've grown up with this,
Speaker 5: you know, having to been very conscious of being black.
Speaker 5: He said, I come to Brazil, I'm home, you know. Well,
Speaker 5: and you know, Brazil took the most amount of slaves
Speaker 5: in West Africa by year. This incredible state which is
Speaker 5: kind of like my favorite place in Brazil is the
Speaker 5: Black State. You know, it's where they had the most slaves.
Speaker 5: And the music and the culture Candomblate it's like and
Speaker 5: what I love about it is you know that it's
Speaker 5: like it's just seemed the assimilation is just softer. And
Speaker 5: you know, obviously in America got You've had serious problems
Speaker 5: with that, and we did in Britain as well. You know,
Speaker 5: we were an empire, terrible empire, but Brazil, for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: and the Portuguese weren't great either, but it seems to
Speaker 5: be almost almost I don't know, it just seems to
Speaker 5: be a bit more of a melting pot, you know.
Speaker 5: And music there is you know, you've got this, you've
Speaker 5: got the you've got the rhythm of Africa and the spirit.
Speaker 5: But you've got some of the little melodies from European,
Speaker 5: from the Portuguese.
Speaker 1: Why do you have this which is so specific? It's
Speaker 1: such a specific flavor of melody. Yeah, that gives it this.
Speaker 5: And when you hear the samba like Carnival samba. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we went to Carnival in Brazil in Rio in twenty
Speaker 5: thirteen and you really get it there because they're very
Speaker 5: tight about the music. So the battery are the drums,
Speaker 5: it's all. I mean, it's West African, right, it's But
Speaker 5: then they've got these little kind of cavacchinos that they
Speaker 5: call these eight string kind of mandolins, and they're digging
Speaker 5: and they're really they're just like European kind of like
Speaker 5: they're like almost fard s kind of.
Speaker 1: It's like that high pitch. Yeah, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: heady brew.
Speaker 5: And like I mean, talk about trance music, ye, that
Speaker 5: is the first trance music you go to, you know,
Speaker 5: because Carnival runs some ten at night through to six
Speaker 5: in the morning and they're very specific. So samba has
Speaker 5: this very specific tempo and part of the battery you
Speaker 5: get the you get the rhythmic and the drums and stuff,
Speaker 5: but underpinning it these big bass drums and they go boom,
Speaker 5: boom boom, and that's the tempo with all six samba
Speaker 5: schools each night. It's over two nights and twelve sums
Speaker 5: and you go to you go to bed at seven
Speaker 5: the morning and.
Speaker 1: Just boom boom. It's like it's and it's it's incredible.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 5: You get into the state and then and then and
Speaker 5: the rhythm is like these poly rhythms and it's just that,
Speaker 5: I mean, it's like rhythmic jazz and and what's so
Speaker 5: amazing is like the battery will do some kind of
Speaker 5: rhythmic polyrhythmic move and not only the musicians get it,
Speaker 5: but the whole the whole audience because they're so savvy,
Speaker 5: they go yeah, and you can hear the cheers and there,
Speaker 5: and as a British man, I'm like, well it sounds good,
Speaker 5: but I didn't understand that significant moment and they and
Speaker 5: they all go, yeah, it's amazing. It's just such an
Speaker 5: extraordinary country.
Speaker 1: A man, I love that. I can't wait to go.
Speaker 1: The music is just it's unbelievable. It's next level. Right.
Speaker 2: Speaking of there's that famous Quincy John's interviewers I'm on
Speaker 2: him earlier.
Speaker 1: He interjects about something wild and.
Speaker 2: He got an interviewer, You like Brazilian music, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it's like so funny, but also at the same time like, yeah,
Speaker 2: quin see, that's right.
Speaker 1: Just tell everyone because that's it's some of the best
Speaker 1: music in the world. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 5: And like those composers and go back to Joe Beim
Speaker 5: and all those yeah, I mean what they were doing
Speaker 5: and then taking the beauty and the subtleness of some
Speaker 5: but it's all in there. So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Tell me about the you know, recording four three, tell
Speaker 2: me if you know anything about it.
Speaker 5: Minimal so standard tuning, our student. Our tuning has been
Speaker 5: standardized since the end of the nineteen thirties. Middle A
Speaker 5: equals four hundred and forty hertz, so you get a
Speaker 5: tune of that's.
Speaker 1: How eight middle A being right next to middle C. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: So middle A is four forty hurts.
Speaker 5: There is a whole music used to fluctuate a bit
Speaker 5: more because they didn't have tuners, and there's a whole
Speaker 5: I've been on this journey now for about fourteen years,
Speaker 5: and there's this whole. There was this whole school of
Speaker 5: thought that a lot of old music up until the
Speaker 5: nineties Entry was played and obviously composed at four three
Speaker 5: to two hurts, and the idea being is that it's
Speaker 5: more whole. And there's this have you heard of cymatics
Speaker 5: where they blow they blow frequencies sound waves at sand
Speaker 5: and they form patterns. Now four forty hurts, it's kind
Speaker 5: of frazzled at four to three to two hurts, perfect
Speaker 5: geometric patterns.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: So that given, that's what it's doing to your cells
Speaker 5: and your body. So I'm really interested in that idea
Speaker 5: of music. Doesn't it's not just it's not just nice
Speaker 5: on the year. There's something that goes on on a
Speaker 5: sort of cellular deeper level. And there was really I
Speaker 5: did an interview with Rolling Stone the other week and
Speaker 5: James Blake has gone I think he's gone four three
Speaker 5: two Ziggy Marley, there's a whole movement. Its Sheebecca Hutchings,
Speaker 5: who played on this record. I had a conversation with
Speaker 5: him about the reason he came and played on record,
Speaker 5: as I had a conversation about four three two, and
Speaker 5: I think people a lot of people opening up to it,
Speaker 5: and for me, I feel it makes the music more whole.
Speaker 5: Now a lot of people go, oh, you know, you're
Speaker 5: full of what do you know? But I feel it,
Speaker 5: and so I think it's I was really keen. I'm
Speaker 5: really keen to really.
Speaker 1: Go for it.
Speaker 5: So I it's easy for a guitar to be four
Speaker 5: three two hurts, but a keyboard, you know, piano, So
Speaker 5: I committed to it. I had our piano tune to
Speaker 5: four three two. I've got Rhoades tuned to four three two.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna experiment. Actually four four four slightly sharper, but
Speaker 5: I'm really interested in.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of class calls at like four four
Speaker 1: four two two concert pitches four four two.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I'm really interested in just like it used
Speaker 5: to be varied, and I don't I don't like things
Speaker 5: when they get locked in and standardized. It's like this
Speaker 5: is the rule a must equals four forty hurts, And
Speaker 5: it's great because it's a bit of a rabbit hole.
Speaker 5: But there's some very interesting theories about this. You know,
Speaker 5: there's this whole thing how the nazis standardized tuning at
Speaker 5: four forty.
Speaker 1: There's all this stuff.
Speaker 5: I don't know because you know, like any information, at
Speaker 5: the moment, you don't know whether it's two or not.
Speaker 5: But you just got to go and what you feel.
Speaker 5: And also there is some science behind it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it's just the music, but you you kind
Speaker 2: of feel something good under this and it could just
Speaker 2: be the music.
Speaker 5: But maybe everything some of the tune, it's everything, and
Speaker 5: I think it's everything. And it's interesting because a lot
Speaker 5: of people have said, oh, yeah, I put the record
Speaker 5: on me. It sort of makes me feel calm, and
Speaker 5: that's what four three two does. It's more whole. And
Speaker 5: remember we are all frequencies, you know, we everything in
Speaker 5: this room, all of us. We're frequency. The future medicine
Speaker 5: will be frequential healing. That illness that you have, is
Speaker 5: that flu you have is a certain frequency, so you know,
Speaker 5: like homeopathy, you match it with another frequency, the same
Speaker 5: frequency and knock it out. So we are all frequencies.
Speaker 5: So there's science in there.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm gonna I'm gonna do a deep dive.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a deep dive on it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I feel like I could change my whole life. After
Speaker 2: a break, we'll be back with more from Ed O'Brien's
Speaker 2: A couple of random last questions I always wanted to ask,
Speaker 2: And I don't know this may maybe maybe this is uh,
Speaker 2: but it gets on your bad side. The Pretty Things
Speaker 2: in the Square and Paranoid Android. Ever heard the similarities
Speaker 2: between the two, No, I was always just curious, can
Speaker 2: I play the Pretty Show?
Speaker 1: Cut it if it gets No, I'm curious the people
Speaker 1: think it's some kind of lift. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've always just kind of heard it though. That's interesting,
Speaker 1: not a limt.
Speaker 5: I'll be completely honest, obviously if if we were influenced,
Speaker 5: but well maybe I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Maybe you won't. I don't know. We can cut it
Speaker 1: if you quick don't mention the Pretty Things. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I've never heard the Pretty Thing. Have you heard that heard?
Speaker 1: Have you heard that parachute it came out?
Speaker 5: No, I've never I don't even know The Pretty Things.
Speaker 5: It's just really good, real good album. There's this song
Speaker 5: on it and they have like a bit of a
Speaker 5: the top of.
Speaker 2: Them, after like the second song, they do a bit
Speaker 2: of like a like a medley Abbey Road style kind
Speaker 2: of medley.
Speaker 1: But at the top of the album.
Speaker 12: This is one of the one of them in this.
Speaker 11: She came running.
Speaker 6: I was lucky.
Speaker 1: It's good. Itsn't it's nice.
Speaker 4: Kind of that era.
Speaker 1: It was like in Melody Make or something.
Speaker 2: It was like right behind let it Be or something
Speaker 2: for this like it was number two for the Album
Speaker 2: of the Year left or.
Speaker 1: Something, but kind of got lots of time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know this this. Oh wow, see we go major. There,
Speaker 1: that's minor. Okay, wow, there's a switch.
Speaker 4: Okay, you got mad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they stay minor. So there's G minor f over
Speaker 5: you know, G minor. Then we go major E major.
Speaker 5: That stays at E minor. I think, you know, wow, okay,
Speaker 5: that's they got They got me Tom, Yeah, no, I
Speaker 5: mean you know. But also I think I remember when
Speaker 5: I first heard that when you know, you know, we
Speaker 5: in the rehearsal student Tom sort of brought that in
Speaker 5: and I think that was It's very Morricone called change
Speaker 5: as well, Like we were listening to a lot of Morricone,
Speaker 5: So I think what I loved about when he brought
Speaker 5: that and was suddenly like that song and that actually
Speaker 5: those chords, all all of them, because they were very Latin,
Speaker 5: they felt very Latin.
Speaker 1: It's suddenly we went, we went more widescreen. Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's well, that's really interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna check.
Speaker 1: I'm glad. I'm glad you heard it too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I'm going it's the same step
Speaker 5: down and you know, it's the it is the G
Speaker 5: minor with the F over the GM, you know.
Speaker 1: But I mean yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure it's all Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, I've revisited Hail of the Thief a lot the
Speaker 2: last three years, you know, like a lot. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: feels like it has its own mm hmm. I mean
Speaker 2: every album sort of does, even kid A and Amnesiac,
Speaker 2: even though I know they get groups together quite a bit,
Speaker 2: have a distinct feel. But there's something really about Hailed
Speaker 2: the Thief that feels somehow like a like a like
Speaker 2: the perfect balance of everything that came before it.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, yeah, I done or feel that. Well. It's interesting.
Speaker 5: So that is interesting because that was Hail to the
Speaker 5: Thief was a response to when we made kid A
Speaker 5: and amnize. Those songs were largely conceived in the studio
Speaker 5: and we learned how to play them out on the road,
Speaker 5: and we felt like we were bringing life. So that
Speaker 5: tour for kid A was obviously playing stuff from Okay
Speaker 5: Computer in the Bends, but also interpreting the stuff from
Speaker 5: kid A and I think it was the first time
Speaker 5: that we again we had to expand our kind of
Speaker 5: our palette in terms of, you know, how we got
Speaker 5: those songs, how we did those songs on kid A
Speaker 5: and Amnesic live, right, And I think you're right that
Speaker 5: it's true that and come and think of it. So
Speaker 5: we were excited by the way we changed as a
Speaker 5: life band. Making those two albums changed us. We had
Speaker 5: to we had to bring in more stuff, and I
Speaker 5: think hell to the was we didn't want to go
Speaker 5: back into the studio for a really long time. We
Speaker 5: just didn't want to go through that intense period that
Speaker 5: kid A and Amnisic was, so we were sort of
Speaker 5: letting go a bit more and just doing what we
Speaker 5: were doing live. So yeah, that's that's that's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think you're right there.
Speaker 1: So kid A and Amnesiac did feel a little.
Speaker 2: It felt intense in that it wasn't you weren't, Yes,
Speaker 2: it was it was it was It wasn't the band
Speaker 2: in its natural state.
Speaker 5: Exactly, No, completely, and it was forcing. It was like
Speaker 5: an article. It was very much a Bowie thing. It's like,
Speaker 5: we're going to change tack here, and this is the
Speaker 5: kind of music where we didn't know exactly what it
Speaker 5: would be like. But Tom was like, I'm done with
Speaker 5: melody and more rhythm and more textures because you can't
Speaker 5: force those things on. They have to sound natural. But
Speaker 5: it wasn't the natural state of the band. We were
Speaker 5: becoming something else. And there was a lot of stuff
Speaker 5: on that was played as a band, but it was
Speaker 5: Jack's to pose with a lot of stuff that we
Speaker 5: were stretching out, using different instruments and different types of
Speaker 5: songs and samples and all sorts.
Speaker 2: It's still a hell of a catalog. It's like, I
Speaker 2: mean to contend with that. You go, but you know,
Speaker 2: I'll go away from it for a long time and
Speaker 2: I come back it's like I'm still there.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: It's one of the funny things about because we did
Speaker 5: the shows last year and it might it might sound
Speaker 5: a bit weird this. But one of the really lovely
Speaker 5: things was in the process of it, Like when rehearsing,
Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, these are really good songs in
Speaker 5: a way I appreciate them in a way that that
Speaker 5: I'd never appreciate them before because you were just doing it,
Speaker 5: but then you stop doing it. And also, I guess
Speaker 5: the other thing is that there was the first time
Speaker 5: that we weren't doing new material, So that whole thing
Speaker 5: was you could kind of really feel the songs in
Speaker 5: a way that we haven't before in terms of, you know,
Speaker 5: their eras of our life, but also the beauty of
Speaker 5: the songs and the and the beauty.
Speaker 1: Of the way we play them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that was so that was really lovely, and
Speaker 5: I could really understand in a way, I could feel
Speaker 5: the emotions of the songs, like I could understand why.
Speaker 1: People liked us, which you know before you.
Speaker 5: Know, I wasn't shocked, but I didn't fully understand it,
Speaker 5: but I understood it. I was like, oh, yeah, these
Speaker 5: are and like you said, it's a really there's a
Speaker 5: lot of really good songs there, and and you can
Speaker 5: play you can have two sets of quite different material
Speaker 5: each night, and they're all pretty strong, So yeah, I think, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's it's a yeah, it's a good place to be.
Speaker 2: Do you think you guys were playing them different on
Speaker 2: this last stour or do you.
Speaker 5: Like yeah, I don't know. I don't It's it's funny
Speaker 5: because you don't want to get too slick with radio
Speaker 5: head songs. It's like you need to have some jeopardy.
Speaker 5: You need to feel like times it's gonna all fall
Speaker 5: over the edge, you know, And that's really good. We've
Speaker 5: because we've always had a but there's always been a
Speaker 5: slight kind of nail biting element to what we do
Speaker 5: because you know the place we've been. However, what's lovely
Speaker 5: is that we can play songs like Present Tense, which
Speaker 5: is essentially I've always loved it because it it feels
Speaker 5: like a Brazilian song off off off a moon shaped Paul.
Speaker 5: But what's so lovely is that we've now got there
Speaker 5: because there's one thing being edgy, and that's fine. There's
Speaker 5: one thing doing that and we could do that, but
Speaker 5: there's another thing, be able to play with softness, and
Speaker 5: I think we're able to do that now that you know,
Speaker 5: we're not panicking, we're appreciating and we're in a calmer place,
Speaker 5: and so that the songs that merit that, they, yeah,
Speaker 5: the ones that need that. We're reaching places that we've
Speaker 5: never reached before in those songs because they need you
Speaker 5: to sort of embody that that loose business and no tension,
Speaker 5: and you know what.
Speaker 1: Songs did feel like that for you. I feel like
Speaker 1: they need the.
Speaker 5: Like present tense. I mean, I think Pyramids song benefited.
Speaker 5: I think it's that thing of I think as you get,
Speaker 5: as you get older, you it's I guess it's a
Speaker 5: bit like being a method actor or something that you
Speaker 5: find the state that you need to be so a
Speaker 5: song likes it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. It's a good question.
Speaker 5: I don't know quite the answer that, because I was
Speaker 5: just about to say, like off kDa National Anthem, which
Speaker 5: is already was and recorded really spiking, but the way
Speaker 5: we were playing it actually it wasn't it had an edge,
Speaker 5: but it it was just it becomes it becomes like
Speaker 5: a deeper beast, like the bass and the groove is deeper.
Speaker 5: And then and then when we go into the outro
Speaker 5: and it's just like you know, and I remember Tom
Speaker 5: started playing this kind of major seventh kind of lick
Speaker 5: and we're like, oh yeah, we're fucking in this place
Speaker 5: and it's like whoa. It's like, so yeah, I think
Speaker 5: I think we can get deeper in terms of a
Speaker 5: deeper groove, and we we you know, it's just like
Speaker 5: it's fatter. Wow, yeah, which is nice, which we weren't before.
Speaker 5: I always thought we were better. I always remember we were.
Speaker 5: I remember, I'm laughing when we played Coachella in twenty twelve.
Speaker 5: We headlined one night and we did it, and I
Speaker 5: stayed the next night for Drey and Snoop were doing
Speaker 5: their thing. And it was the year that the Tupac hologram.
Speaker 5: Yeah right, okay, so weird moment, you know, and I
Speaker 5: had some of those chocolate mushrooms.
Speaker 1: I stayed on.
Speaker 5: And you know, it's very lovely. I walked out. I was,
Speaker 5: I was, I was, you know, do you want to
Speaker 5: come and see us? Like, yeah, of course I do.
Speaker 5: It's like and I remember, like the first song ushering
Speaker 5: in the VIP thing. You stand, it's amazing. You walk
Speaker 5: in front of the bass bins, in front of the audience,
Speaker 5: and you walk down the middle and you stand there
Speaker 5: and it's you know, and I remember watching that show
Speaker 5: and the and the sound, and I was just like, man, shit,
Speaker 5: this makes us look like a fucking string quartet.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: And I think I think we've always longed, you know,
Speaker 5: it's we've always longed to have a bit of that
Speaker 5: West coast or what at that depth, that base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think we not the weather, but it's
Speaker 1: work in progress.
Speaker 2: I think the next record you send it to Dre,
Speaker 2: get that missed?
Speaker 5: Do you know my dream when no kidding, This is
Speaker 5: the thing. I don't think I've ever said this. My
Speaker 5: dream was like on kid A. It was like that
Speaker 5: the year of reinvention. I was so into Dre as
Speaker 5: a like I loved everything he did. So we're talking
Speaker 5: two thousands and I remember No Diggity had just come
Speaker 5: out and I was just like, fuck, why don't how
Speaker 5: cool would it be for radio to work with Dr Dre.
Speaker 5: I would have loved that. I would have been a
Speaker 5: pig and shit.
Speaker 2: Man, that would have been incredible.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know, I mean, you know, I'm not
Speaker 5: sure about I mean, he might not put up with us, and.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. It was just like
Speaker 1: it was just like.
Speaker 5: A dream in another world, in a parallel universe, we'd
Speaker 5: have gone in and done a record with Dre and
Speaker 5: and you know, because that's what Bowie would have done, right, Bowie,
Speaker 5: if he was at the same area, gone like because
Speaker 5: you know, you think about him when he did Young Americans. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he goes, I want that Philly sound. Yeah, well that
Speaker 5: equivalent for us would have been like, I want something
Speaker 5: like that West Coast, yeah, you know, and and juxtaposed
Speaker 5: that with our gnarly thingy whatever we did. Anyway, I
Speaker 5: just thought he could take because we we had Riffscalore
Speaker 5: and we had pockets and grooves Scalore that even if
Speaker 5: we didn't, you know, we we sent him a load
Speaker 5: of stuff. And you know, because he was always the
Speaker 5: best at sampling and what he did and right and
Speaker 5: taking what he did and used, and he.
Speaker 2: Would use live like he had live players.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had his guys.
Speaker 2: He'd be like, exactly going to take this from Joe Corcker,
Speaker 2: but you're going to chop it like that.
Speaker 5: And I always felt like we had the potential to
Speaker 5: that someone. I was always delighted, like when anyone of
Speaker 5: that world sampled us, you know, really, oh just I
Speaker 5: loved it because that meant that, you know, it meant
Speaker 5: that you were. There was a bit of a groove
Speaker 5: to what you did. I mean, you know, we just
Speaker 5: that was so much of the music that we listened to,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, maybe another lifetime if you like
Speaker 2: this one it is, it's one for another lifetime.
Speaker 5: It's another reincarnation with with Dray and another reincarnation.
Speaker 1: We'll dream it.
Speaker 2: We'll dream it.
Speaker 1: It was great talking love so much. Beautiful Records, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we got to listen to some of it
Speaker 2: and talk. Yeah, thank you, beautiful thanks, justin thank you,
Speaker 2: beautiful Thanks. An episode description, you'll find a link to
Speaker 2: a playlist of our favorite songs from ed Olbrian and
Speaker 2: some of the other songs mentioned in this episode as well.
Speaker 2: We ture to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
Speaker 2: Up a podcast to see all of our interviews, and
Speaker 2: be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken
Speaker 2: Record pot. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Speaker 2: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
Speaker 2: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 2: is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 2: If you love this show and others from Pushkin consider
Speaker 2: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
Speaker 2: that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
Speaker 2: ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
Speaker 2: podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
Speaker 2: to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
Speaker 2: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.