Speaker 1: Pushkin. Canadian born singer songwriter Feist has been one of
Speaker 1: the most dynamic indie voices of the last two decades.
Speaker 1: She scored international fame early in her career, thanks in
Speaker 1: part to a nano iPod commercial featuring the song one, two,
Speaker 1: three four, But for fans of Feist, her appeal lies
Speaker 1: in how she mines her complex emotional life. Just last month,
Speaker 1: Feist released her sixth album, Multitudes. She recorded it in
Speaker 1: the aftermath of tremendous personal loss and change. In late
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, Feist adopted a baby just months before the
Speaker 1: pandemic started. About a year later, her father died suddenly.
Speaker 1: Multitudes is a raw and intimate look at how she
Speaker 1: grappled with deep seated grief and a new kind of love.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, Lea Rose time with Feist about how
Speaker 1: being assaulted in high school ultimately led to her gaining resilience.
Speaker 1: Feist also remembers the day her music career began when
Speaker 1: she was asked to front a hardcore band, and how
Speaker 1: screaming on stage and ultimately blowing out her voice forced
Speaker 1: her to develop her intimate, career defining singing style. This
Speaker 1: is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm
Speaker 1: justin Mitchman. Here's Lea Rose with Feist.
Speaker 2: I have read the PR blurb about the new album,
Speaker 2: but I would love to hear in your words, just
Speaker 2: talk about how the project started to come together.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, everything was pretty topsy turvy, there wasn't it.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was a complete reframe. There was no
Speaker 3: presumption of the way things used to be is the
Speaker 3: way they're.
Speaker 4: Going to be.
Speaker 3: And interestingly, the outside world was sort of echoing what
Speaker 3: was going on for me in my side world, which
Speaker 3: was that nothing was to be presumed, nothing that had
Speaker 3: been was going to be.
Speaker 4: Because I had just become a mother right four months.
Speaker 3: Before the pandemic started, so it was sort of a
Speaker 3: double down of complete reassessment. And you know, a friend
Speaker 3: of mine said something that has become unfortunately so true.
Speaker 3: I mean, fortunately unfortunately that to become a parent is
Speaker 3: to be incinerated and so true. But who rises from
Speaker 3: the ashes is a more interesting person to be for
Speaker 3: the rest of your life And I'm still working on that.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure out if this is more interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that I know, it's like I just feel
Speaker 2: like a like depleted version. But hopefully eventually more interesting.
Speaker 3: Well, the way I've been looking at it is the
Speaker 3: person who decided to the person who felt capable of
Speaker 3: being a mother to decided to become a mother, she
Speaker 3: was actually not.
Speaker 4: Very useful and not very helpful a monther.
Speaker 3: So you know, that was then echoed by the whole
Speaker 3: world kind of being uncomfortable with their former selves that
Speaker 3: didn't serve them anymore in this new context. And every
Speaker 3: I felt like everywhere I looked, anyone close to me,
Speaker 3: let alone kind of collectively, there was just this crucible
Speaker 3: that was just incinerating every presumption that came from a
Speaker 3: previous time, you know. And so songs kind of they
Speaker 3: became what they're they always have been to me, but
Speaker 3: like they certainly were even more so a kind of
Speaker 3: a habit that I returned to that brought me comfort
Speaker 3: or like a it might be in that incineration, some
Speaker 3: last living arm lunged out of the quicksand like ah
Speaker 3: and grabbed it a little filament of a former self
Speaker 3: or something, because I found it really helped me to
Speaker 3: use some of those wee hours and those sort of
Speaker 3: that liminal state of pure exhaustion and to open myself
Speaker 3: to that and a lot of new things and new
Speaker 3: parts of me were very slowly given a little a
Speaker 3: place to you know, work out.
Speaker 4: What that was going to look like in the form
Speaker 4: of songs.
Speaker 3: So it was, you know, kind of like a like
Speaker 3: some people return to hiking, or they get they go swimming,
Speaker 3: clear their head, they you know, whatever they've done their
Speaker 3: whole life to return to a kind of a privacy
Speaker 3: that is going to maybe help them like untangle something.
Speaker 3: In my very fortunate case, I've always found that in
Speaker 3: writing a song over the years, like I can put
Speaker 3: almost every one of my songs has in some way
Speaker 3: been my attempt to understand some unknowable moments.
Speaker 2: Are there any songs on the new album that directly
Speaker 2: relate to being a new parent that helped you articulate
Speaker 2: something that you couldn't quite grasp before.
Speaker 3: Well, I would say the only song that you know,
Speaker 3: she will I was about her is the song Forever Before,
Speaker 3: which I think might be the second song I think.
Speaker 3: And it came from this idea that to commit so intentionally,
Speaker 3: to walk so directly right towards the precipice of complete vulnerability,
Speaker 3: is to become a mother.
Speaker 4: And I had never begun a forever before.
Speaker 3: I mean, that was sort of there was no sidling
Speaker 3: out of that commitment.
Speaker 4: It was a true commitment.
Speaker 3: And you know, as much as I feel that I
Speaker 3: have been committed to things in my life before, I've
Speaker 3: shown all the way up to different things and different
Speaker 3: relationships and different ways of thinking or ways of being,
Speaker 3: the ways of relating, I had never done something that
Speaker 3: could not be undone or that I hope will never
Speaker 3: be undone.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: It's the first one hundred percent, just like dive Dive in,
Speaker 3: you know. And so that song kind of helped in
Speaker 3: a way. It chronologically over the three verses, it's sort
Speaker 3: of it's like a little parenthesis around maybe the years
Speaker 3: leading up to understanding the basis of my life and
Speaker 3: how it was no longer enough or something, and how
Speaker 3: that I wanted to expand and make myself prone to
Speaker 3: the unknown.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: On your song Borrow Trouble, there's some lyrics that talk
Speaker 2: about picturing a life that you are left out of
Speaker 2: and how that is maybe different than what you imagined.
Speaker 2: And it seems to me like you're now trying to
Speaker 2: appreciate a life that you've created for yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say I found the idea years ago
Speaker 3: that like, if I can't make it better, if it's
Speaker 3: out of with it, not within my power to make
Speaker 3: it better, it being what, you know, whatever I'm in
Speaker 3: the midst of trying to face or solve like psychicalge
Speaker 3: break equation of like solve for X.
Speaker 4: It's like the X is.
Speaker 3: Ever changing and it is ever present, and it's just
Speaker 3: going to shape shift and always be something to me
Speaker 3: to solve. And if I can't make it better, at
Speaker 3: least I can learn how to not make it worse.
Speaker 3: And to not make it worse means to not spin
Speaker 3: my wheels in and concretized thinking or learning actually what
Speaker 3: the mechanics of passive aggressivity is and what it is
Speaker 3: to And that's another thing about to commit to the
Speaker 3: words that come out of your mouth. It's sort of
Speaker 3: bootcamp for committing to the steps you take towards in
Speaker 3: which directions and all of that, I guess is it's
Speaker 3: sort of been the quiet background of all the work
Speaker 3: I've done in my life and my mind. And as
Speaker 3: art imitates life, songs the songs these songs in particular
Speaker 3: have taken the form of like a roadmap or as
Speaker 3: we all self mythologize, you know, in our you don't.
Speaker 3: And as friends who work very different they have different jobs.
Speaker 3: Me friends who don't get a response from the world
Speaker 3: about what their work is. They say, Hey, don't kid yourself.
Speaker 3: I have the exact same self mythologizing. I invest in
Speaker 3: the lore of my life. What is you know, the
Speaker 3: background of my childhood and what it did to me
Speaker 3: and how it created the expectations that I then had
Speaker 3: to fight to.
Speaker 4: You know, It's just that in my case, I work
Speaker 4: it out in this way that can then be like a.
Speaker 3: Silly, petty puzzle piece that someone people can take it
Speaker 3: and then reform it to fit the puzzle that they're
Speaker 3: trying to solve. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious, like, what were you like in high school?
Speaker 2: What were you into?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What kind of kid were you in high school?
Speaker 3: Well? I suppose I was probably kind of shy, but
Speaker 3: I also had started to go to all the punk
Speaker 3: shows in my town, and I had assumed the exterior
Speaker 3: of looking other than what I was on the inside.
Speaker 3: And I was sort of you know, I had piercings
Speaker 3: and shaved my head and it was manic. Panic was
Speaker 3: and I went to a pretty conservative high school, and
Speaker 3: maybe in the first couple of maybe the first month
Speaker 3: or two or something of my first year of high school,
Speaker 3: I was attacked by a group of guys, not like
Speaker 3: I mean here I am making excuses for them, like
Speaker 3: not violently, but come on.
Speaker 4: Like I was.
Speaker 3: Lifted up and slammed into a wall and handcuffed to
Speaker 3: a door. And then I've actually never told this story
Speaker 3: except to friends, but at this point I kind of
Speaker 3: understand how this was. All The adversity I was against
Speaker 3: was like ultimately helpful but very difficult.
Speaker 4: But the whole student body, you know, no one came
Speaker 4: to my aid. They created kind of like a.
Speaker 3: Giant school size semi circle around me, and you know,
Speaker 3: laughed and jeered and snickered, and then we're shoed into
Speaker 3: the cafeteria. And then the vice principal, I guess, after
Speaker 3: like half an hour or something, I got un handcuffed
Speaker 3: and was completely in shock. And then he he was like,
Speaker 3: who did this? And I said, I don't know. They
Speaker 3: came up from behind me, and he said, that's why
Speaker 3: we don't want kids like you here. And then he
Speaker 3: made me walk through the entire cafeteria in front of
Speaker 3: him while he walked behind me through a dead silent
Speaker 3: cafeteria TI so that I would tell him who had
Speaker 3: done this, and up and down the rows of the
Speaker 3: different seats while the only sound in the cafeteria was
Speaker 3: my own crying because I was, you know, choking in
Speaker 3: my like and I was being marched up and down
Speaker 3: these aisles. And then you know, in the silence, someone
Speaker 3: screamed freak, and then the and then twelve hundred people laughed.
Speaker 3: And I'd say that was the basis of my high school.
Speaker 3: And I started skipping, and I started going to like
Speaker 3: more and more shows and not really knowing where to
Speaker 3: go and what to be and what to do. And
Speaker 3: luckily these girls came up to me in the hallway
Speaker 3: and they were like, hey, you go to all those shows, right,
Speaker 3: but aren't you in the choir because I had found
Speaker 3: the choir at that school. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm in the choir and I go to all the shows.
Speaker 3: And they're like, well, we need a singer for our band.
Speaker 3: Do you wanna Do you want to join our band?
Speaker 3: And I was like, without that, I have no idea
Speaker 3: where I would have ended up. And then I transferred
Speaker 3: myself to an alternative school, and I didn't tell my
Speaker 3: mom didn't even know. You know, it was like maybe
Speaker 3: many months in the school contacted her and said, Leslie's expelled.
Speaker 3: She hasn't shown up, And my mom was like assumed
Speaker 3: I was just completely and I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I just didn't tell you because I knew you.
Speaker 4: Would probably make it even harder for me to just
Speaker 4: pull this off. So I just did it. And I
Speaker 4: was at this.
Speaker 3: Alternative school and I was in this band and like,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of turned that frown upside down sort
Speaker 3: of thing through the support of like genuine community.
Speaker 2: Did you tell your parents about the incident with the
Speaker 2: being handcuffed?
Speaker 4: Yes, my mom.
Speaker 3: I didn't live with my dad was across the country,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I told my mom. And I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, she had just watched her daughter change so
Speaker 3: radically that she might have just been so frustrated that
Speaker 3: like she you know, let's just say that in recent years,
Speaker 3: I've recontextualized hey ps. Nowadays, luckily there's language to meet
Speaker 3: this type of moment that at the time there was
Speaker 3: no language for. And I can say that I'm grateful
Speaker 3: that now, like, you know, the gradations of experience that
Speaker 3: any single word can carry within it is now at
Speaker 3: least available to be evoked when it needs to be
Speaker 3: because that principle. You know, like I can still get angry.
Speaker 3: I can still think I need to find out who
Speaker 3: that was. I need to write an open letter to
Speaker 3: that school letting them know how.
Speaker 4: You know, they might be like, ooh, will you come
Speaker 4: speak at our graduation.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, I might have something to say that
Speaker 3: you don't necessarily want to hear. But it was a
Speaker 3: different time, and not to excuse it, but I can
Speaker 3: say that like it just we all.
Speaker 4: Know it to be true. It was a different time.
Speaker 3: There was no vocabulary around this, and without that, I
Speaker 3: don't know where I would be. And so it's like
Speaker 3: anything that helps you grow or causes you to have
Speaker 3: to unavoidably find some interior basis for understanding, and you
Speaker 3: can cave into bitterness or you can, you know, And
Speaker 3: I'm sure I had many years of caving into bitterness.
Speaker 3: But something else rose from it that I'm grateful for.
Speaker 2: When did you start writing songs?
Speaker 3: Well, in that band, I suppose was the beginning of songwriting,
Speaker 3: even though we were doing it together. It was baby
Speaker 3: steps in lyrics, and you know, who's the narrator, is
Speaker 3: this first person, is this dream sequence, is this stream
Speaker 3: of consciousness?
Speaker 4: Or just you know, melody.
Speaker 3: But it was a hardcore band, so ultimately our main
Speaker 3: asset was volume and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and melody came a lot later.
Speaker 3: I mean there was melody, I suppose at that time,
Speaker 3: but it was mostly I didn't play guitar. I just
Speaker 3: was the front person and I and volume was you know,
Speaker 3: kind of where what I leaned on. And Yeah, so
Speaker 3: many years later, after I blew my voice out on
Speaker 3: tour with that band, like just from screaming, I ended
Speaker 3: up kind of under doctor's orders to you know, stay silent.
Speaker 4: I had nodes. I had the whole that period of
Speaker 4: regenerating and I learned.
Speaker 3: I kind of taught myself to begin to play guitar
Speaker 3: at that time when I when I was in this
Speaker 3: sort of imposed silence and I'd had to quit the band.
Speaker 3: I'd moved to Toronto. I you know, I was living
Speaker 3: in my dad's basement and just like kind of dealing
Speaker 3: with my first dose of isolation, and what I found
Speaker 3: there was you know, melody essentially.
Speaker 2: Do you remember some of the first songs you wrote
Speaker 2: once you started playing guitar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also had this thing called a melodica, which
Speaker 3: is kind of like a wooden boxed miniature xylophone that
Speaker 3: I was really and also had a four track. My
Speaker 3: dad had given me a cassette four track a task
Speaker 3: am and I had started with layers and singing harmonies
Speaker 3: and making these long overtones with the metallophone, and I
Speaker 3: kind of maybe something like sound sculptures using the radio,
Speaker 3: using interference and just kind of playing with the form,
Speaker 3: and like maybe the first songs I wrote the kind
Speaker 3: of clunky first, you know, broad strokes attempts were you know,
Speaker 3: it's like now I listened to them and it's like
Speaker 3: the touching yearbook photo kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Where do you identify with any of the lyrics?
Speaker 3: Still, maybe there was a there was a kind of
Speaker 3: a sensibility and interest in metaphor already. Was there a
Speaker 3: kind of wordplay you know, I can hear now the
Speaker 3: kind of grandfathered in sort of tendencies to like how
Speaker 3: to speak around a subject rather than directly to it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess I wouldn't like sit and probably cover any
Speaker 3: of I would say. And see I'm even calling it covering,
Speaker 3: like as if it's not my own.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting a former self, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably wouldn't cover her songs, but I can, but
Speaker 3: I can appreciate that there's some DNA there.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then come
Speaker 1: back with more from Leo Rose and Feist. We're back
Speaker 1: with Leo Rose and Feist.
Speaker 2: What do you think that you do as a songwriter
Speaker 2: as a performer, What do you think you do especially
Speaker 2: well or what are you the best at?
Speaker 3: That's a nice question. I don't know that I can
Speaker 3: really characterize it in words. It's a there's like a
Speaker 3: location in me that is interested in all sorts of
Speaker 3: variables and how they how they cross over, and maybe
Speaker 3: I on this record in particular, I was interested in
Speaker 3: kind of unseating some of my tendencies and seeing what.
Speaker 4: Might might be behind them.
Speaker 3: And there's, maybe for the first time in my life,
Speaker 3: an awareness that there's a kind of a rigor and
Speaker 3: a craft and an interest in craft that I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have known with my frontal lobe previously, I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: really thought that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 4: But I'm kind of I continue to learn from what
Speaker 4: came before.
Speaker 3: Like everything I've done previously is sort of composted into
Speaker 3: the new body of work, and I can say to
Speaker 3: people I'm working with, like, this feels a little bit
Speaker 3: like mush of Boom's great granddaughter or something like there's
Speaker 3: some there's some DNA. There's something in here that is
Speaker 3: or like if Century and Sea Lion had had a
Speaker 3: love child, that might be you know, bort of Trouble
Speaker 3: or something like that. Or but yeah, there's a lineage
Speaker 3: maybe in what I've made so far that that makes
Speaker 3: me curious about what will come next or how the
Speaker 3: perspective will continue to be interesting.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like the character that you've created or
Speaker 2: do you feel like there even is a character that
Speaker 2: you've created through your work? And if so, is that
Speaker 2: person you or is it similar to you? Or does
Speaker 2: that make sense?
Speaker 4: It does? It does? It makes more sense now than ever.
Speaker 3: I feel like an alignment has occurred where I now
Speaker 3: know I owe nothing to the avatar. You know, the
Speaker 3: thing that is refracted by this particular light that's shined
Speaker 3: on this thing I do, that society that our society
Speaker 3: shines this particular timbre of light is quality of light
Speaker 3: on what I do, and it refracts out beyond me,
Speaker 3: and in some cases maybe leans a little bit too
Speaker 3: much importance on it in a way that is on
Speaker 3: the surface. I've learned that my investment in this very
Speaker 3: private conversation with myself, yeah, and my voice being like
Speaker 3: literally and then part of my anatomy that over many
Speaker 3: years I learned to listen to from the inside rather
Speaker 3: than from the outside.
Speaker 4: And so it's kind.
Speaker 3: Of like I've never thought about this before, but imagine
Speaker 3: like a you know, like how a door knob reaches
Speaker 3: through a door, and on one side you can turn
Speaker 3: it to go in, and on the other side you
Speaker 3: can turn it to go out, and those are two
Speaker 3: different gestures, but there is the same portal. It's the
Speaker 3: same desire to move through. And so my voice or
Speaker 3: the way I've chosen to try to formulate not this
Speaker 3: not only the sound or the expression of it, but
Speaker 3: the words that it's encants I now acknowledge and I
Speaker 3: feel comfortable in knowing that that part is it's as
Speaker 3: much me as it is what it becomes in someone
Speaker 3: else's listening, you know.
Speaker 4: So it's and.
Speaker 3: That's the part that I feel doesn't get refracted and
Speaker 3: like it's not like a house of mirrors where that
Speaker 3: can't be changed by the perception of it, because if
Speaker 3: my privacy goes into someone else's privacy, there it's like
Speaker 3: a you know, it's like hermetically sealed.
Speaker 4: It's safe. Yeah, it's kind of there is a safety
Speaker 4: to it.
Speaker 3: And I feel as I lean deeper into myself, into
Speaker 3: the discomfort of my like continual daily misunderstanding of myself
Speaker 3: and just trying to align to some personal responsibility, that's
Speaker 3: kind of a north star that is looking for different
Speaker 3: these dimensions. I'm hoping to find out how to be
Speaker 3: fed by them because I'm increasingly depleted and I'm realizing
Speaker 3: my like psychic organism cannot sustain often how much I'm
Speaker 3: attempting to be and do into how many people into
Speaker 3: It's like I'm never quite so for X. It's just
Speaker 3: like every single day I'm like, I can't find X.
Speaker 3: I can't solve for X. And yet then these songs
Speaker 3: weirdly are a place where I think I can because
Speaker 3: I can pause time and I can give myself just
Speaker 3: like a little a little navigation somehow.
Speaker 2: Is there anything on the album that you feel like
Speaker 2: you did solve, Like any feelings that you either came
Speaker 2: to terms with or you were able to articulate.
Speaker 3: There was sort of like a secondary you know, because
Speaker 3: I somehow wrote these songs through like this really difficult time,
Speaker 3: and I think I managed in that time to kind
Speaker 3: of make myself evoke or lean into also the responsibility
Speaker 3: to find the joy or to you know, like be
Speaker 3: a little bit of a solar panel and face the
Speaker 3: light and be energized by these things that I'm learning
Speaker 3: or the relationships that you know, just help me keep
Speaker 3: the horizon insight and not get.
Speaker 4: Completely lost, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so weirdly, you know, you'd think songs are
Speaker 3: you're saying something out loud as if you know something.
Speaker 4: And so I.
Speaker 3: Once the record was kind of you know, no longer
Speaker 3: just in my within my reach, like I'm still changing it,
Speaker 3: I'm still mixing it, I'm still working on it. And
Speaker 3: now it's like at once, you know, from one day
Speaker 3: to the next. Now it's it's out, or at least
Speaker 3: it's out of my it's it's sealed.
Speaker 4: It's done. It's like with a wax seal is like boop.
Speaker 3: And there was sort of the secondary wave of a
Speaker 3: discomfort and a kind of grief because I'm like oh
Speaker 3: my God, Like I don't feel any better. It's like
Speaker 3: maybe I could have well, I mean not to say
Speaker 3: I mean every day I feel a range of reality.
Speaker 3: But maybe even I thought that these songs could solve
Speaker 3: something for me, or they could make something a little
Speaker 3: easier or something. But the problems remain very much a
Speaker 3: lot I've you know, the kind of shape shifting required,
Speaker 3: like the woman who became a mother wasn't useful as
Speaker 3: a mother, and now I need to become someone else
Speaker 3: to be able to be that mother.
Speaker 4: It's also the daughter who lost your father.
Speaker 3: Like these things are the adultification is ongoing. And so
Speaker 3: to answer your question, maybe I think I caught a
Speaker 3: kind of hope, you know, like it's there is some optimism.
Speaker 3: I learned years ago that whatever I sing, and in
Speaker 3: the repetition of it, I can find myself making it
Speaker 3: true and truer, like whatever you look at becomes.
Speaker 4: You see it.
Speaker 3: And so if I'm looking to see more hope or
Speaker 3: more optimism or more like I'm trying to like collect
Speaker 3: the little crumbs of clarity put my puzzle together, that
Speaker 3: maybe is what I think I found Indie songs. And
Speaker 3: even as I say all this, I feel a bit
Speaker 3: absurd because this is that self mythologizing I was talking about.
Speaker 4: But it's important to me.
Speaker 3: I'd say, it's more important to me than anyone else,
Speaker 3: because this is what I this is the form I
Speaker 3: used to try to unpack and understand what's going.
Speaker 4: On in there.
Speaker 2: Right, And just speaking of having the feeling that nothing
Speaker 2: has changed after accomplishing something, have you had the experience of, like,
Speaker 2: as you've gotten more successful or as you've experienced success
Speaker 2: over the course of your career, did you ever have
Speaker 2: the thought that when you reached a certain place of
Speaker 2: success or fame or whatever it is, that some of
Speaker 2: those problems would go away.
Speaker 3: I don't think that I ever had a fixed destination
Speaker 3: in mind or edward or was it within you know,
Speaker 3: maybe the illusion that I could make anything easier. But
Speaker 3: I will say that something, something that led to some
Speaker 3: of this cracking open was precipitated by going to that
Speaker 3: People festival. I don't know if you've heard about it,
Speaker 3: but it was a festival in Berlin that was curated
Speaker 3: or the context of it, which was created by Justin
Speaker 3: Vernon and the Desert Brothers of the National Era, Aaron
Speaker 3: and Bryce, and they created a festival and it invited
Speaker 3: me to it, and they kind of tried. I think
Speaker 3: they invited me a few years and I didn't quite
Speaker 3: have the ears to hear what they were saying until
Speaker 3: I was ready to hear what they were saying, which is,
Speaker 3: we really want to create a situation where people step
Speaker 3: outside of their own expectations of themselves and find something new.
Speaker 3: What they do is they invite, like in this one
Speaker 3: in Berlin, there was like three hundred people, and in
Speaker 3: each case it was someone they kind of knew. Concentric
Speaker 3: circle like you know, a few radiations out from them,
Speaker 3: or old friends, like we're old friends, and Justin and
Speaker 3: I are old friends.
Speaker 4: And they take people out of their comfort.
Speaker 3: Zone in sense like not you and your drummer and
Speaker 3: your bass player and your tour manager and you're in
Speaker 3: your monitors person or or something. It's just you or
Speaker 3: the bass player from that band, or the drummer from
Speaker 3: that band, or the guy who wrote the libretto for
Speaker 3: that opera, that poet or that choreographer or that the
Speaker 3: trumpet player musical director for Paul Simon's band. You know,
Speaker 3: just all these individuals who possibly have knit themselves very
Speaker 3: closely with the people that they've been in collaboration with
Speaker 3: for many, many years, and.
Speaker 4: As I had done with my immediate family.
Speaker 3: And then they just put us all in a hotel
Speaker 3: in Berlin with food and drinks, kind of like we
Speaker 3: were joking, it's like being at a really nice wedding.
Speaker 4: And then they took over this campus called the.
Speaker 3: Funk House, which is an old radio kind of a
Speaker 3: Soviet era giant radio station with many studios in it,
Speaker 3: and we would go between the campus and the hotel
Speaker 3: and the ideas everyone's supposed to for five days cultivate.
Speaker 4: Kind of like I don't have an idea, do you do?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 4: What should we do?
Speaker 3: But tickets have already been sold for Saturday Sunday to
Speaker 3: thousands of people coming who don't know who's there. They
Speaker 3: didn't buy the tickets knowing who's going to be at
Speaker 3: the festival. They just know that this people festival invites
Speaker 3: people and then something will occur.
Speaker 4: As a result. And it was just the most remarkable thing.
Speaker 3: It was just I reconnected with the Kings of Convenience
Speaker 3: there who I hadn't played with for years. I created
Speaker 3: an improvisation project with Todd Dhlhoff and Shazzad is Maley
Speaker 3: based upon Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey.
Speaker 4: I mean just literally.
Speaker 3: Because I had it at dinner one night, the book
Speaker 3: that I was reading, and shaza said, what's that?
Speaker 4: And I was like, you wouldn't believe this book.
Speaker 3: You just flip it open in any phrase from this
Speaker 3: ancient Greek.
Speaker 4: This woman made it read.
Speaker 3: So readable, so relatable, and anything could be sung.
Speaker 4: And he's like, hey, well then let's do that.
Speaker 3: Let's ask Mary the creative director, Mary Hickson, to give
Speaker 3: us space and give us an hour.
Speaker 4: And that's what she did. She would she would have kind.
Speaker 3: Of and this enormous spreadsheet the size of a room.
Speaker 3: She was moving people's names around through the rooms available
Speaker 3: and helping people find ways to incubate new projects. And
Speaker 3: then programmed this entire festival on the fly, so that
Speaker 3: when the audience came, they all each member, each person
Speaker 3: who came, I think they divided these thousands of people
Speaker 3: up into ten groups. They all got wristbands it said
Speaker 3: number one, number two, number three, and there was a
Speaker 3: different itinerary for each group of people. So they would
Speaker 3: be brought from room to room to room in twenty
Speaker 3: minute to forty minute increments and see these projects that
Speaker 3: were just being.
Speaker 4: Born on the fly, and that is so cool. It
Speaker 4: was so cool.
Speaker 3: And I guess what I'm saying is that that was
Speaker 3: to answer your question with the longest answer of all
Speaker 3: time through history, is it was a kind of a
Speaker 3: I called it like a mid career detox or something,
Speaker 3: because it was it was a way to strip myself
Speaker 3: of all of the rules that I'd come up with
Speaker 3: that they were like collated over invisibly over time. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I shouldn't do that anymore because that didn't work. Okay,
Speaker 3: so now I have rule number one. Now I shouldn't
Speaker 3: play multiple shows in the same city because it seems
Speaker 3: that by the third show it's change and it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel right.
Speaker 4: So okay, no more multiples.
Speaker 3: Or like, technically I should use my pedal chain this
Speaker 3: way because that's the way that seems to work best.
Speaker 3: I should use my And I had kind of collected
Speaker 3: this armature of all of these things that I knew
Speaker 3: in air quotes, because what it was was I was
Speaker 3: just limiting myself. I created all these conditions that kind
Speaker 3: of disempowered me.
Speaker 4: At the core where I thought that I.
Speaker 3: Could only be what I am and do what I
Speaker 3: do if these conditions were in place. And so slowly, slowly, slowly,
Speaker 3: I lost my scissor kicking punk clarity, a vision, and
Speaker 3: I became like a professional who in that transition kind
Speaker 3: of lost access to like the primary energetic truth surge
Speaker 3: that it makes sound out of my body, you know,
Speaker 3: and that people festival. Really it just gave me this
Speaker 3: feeling of being like at Summer Camp, like.
Speaker 4: You know every single person there, and these are people.
Speaker 3: Who have achieved tenure, Like we've all been touring for
Speaker 3: twenty years, and everyone's walking into the cafeteria equivalent and
Speaker 3: being like, I don't know anyone.
Speaker 2: Here, like who it must be so humbling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, can I sit with you guys?
Speaker 3: Like that kind of thing, And everyone was feeling that,
Speaker 3: and yeah, it was a really remarkable experience.
Speaker 4: It really changed everything for me.
Speaker 1: We're taking one last quick break and then coming back
Speaker 1: with more from Leo Rose and Feist. We're back with
Speaker 1: the rest of Leo Rose's interview with Feist.
Speaker 2: There's a certain threshold that all of us have for
Speaker 2: letting something new in. When you're listening to new music
Speaker 2: or a new artist or a new genre or whatever
Speaker 2: it is. Does that happen for you with your own music?
Speaker 4: How so like, do.
Speaker 2: You have to hear something maybe like ten times, or
Speaker 2: sing something a bunch of times, or hear even if
Speaker 2: it's just a track here it a bunch of times
Speaker 2: before it sticks. You know.
Speaker 4: It's funny because I.
Speaker 3: Just listened last night on a long nighttime drive to pod.
Speaker 4: I love on being. I'm sure you say it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, oh yeah, I love it. She'stipic, she's wonderful
Speaker 2: and she's so great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure it is doing what you do.
Speaker 3: You must feel like you identify with her or something
Speaker 3: that it's to conduct an interview, you know, which, by
Speaker 3: the way, you're doing really beautifully.
Speaker 2: So oh thank you.
Speaker 3: But but she interviewed Rick Rubin. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you heard that one that is, I did it. It's
Speaker 3: like it's recent and it's not often that she interviews
Speaker 3: anybody from anywhere close to I mean, not that i'd
Speaker 3: say I'm close to anywhere close to what Rick Ruben's accomplished,
Speaker 3: but in the sense that I don't really hear her
Speaker 3: speaking to people who make art. It's more people whose
Speaker 3: life as they live it is in a way way
Speaker 3: art or writers or you know, theologians, or I mean
Speaker 3: just people from all walks of life, but not often
Speaker 3: like a record producer or a musician, you know, because
Speaker 3: we were kind of like the low art on the
Speaker 3: art spectrum or something.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he really he said something that I really liked,
Speaker 3: which was she was admitting that though she speaks with
Speaker 3: writers all the time and she's trying to cultivate her
Speaker 3: own practice of writing and make space for that, and
Speaker 3: that it's that when she sits in front of the page,
Speaker 3: she's kind of just tortured and having such a difficult time.
Speaker 3: And I found that so touching, because that's I don't
Speaker 3: know that anyone gets to bypass that part of it,
Speaker 3: the self loath, the self loathing, the you know, impostures
Speaker 3: syndrome sort of thing. But he said, well, it's because
Speaker 3: if you're the writer and the reader in the same instant,
Speaker 3: there's a cognitive dissonance between the doing.
Speaker 4: And the absorbing. So you've you've squeezed.
Speaker 3: It out of you and you're now you're immediately absorbing it,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna you're going to taint the reading with
Speaker 3: the writing of it because you're going to be the
Speaker 3: writer reading it, and that's that.
Speaker 4: Those are two different roles. And so he gave great.
Speaker 3: Advice, which was to just create a buffer and separation
Speaker 3: between those two halves of yourself and right right, right,
Speaker 3: right right, as if it's a muscle you're exercising, and
Speaker 3: don't read anything. And then maybe way later, when you're
Speaker 3: absolutely certain you have no idea what's in that book,
Speaker 3: open it again, and then you can be the reader,
Speaker 3: and then you can judge truly. So in writing, you know,
Speaker 3: in writing these songs, what he said, I recognize it
Speaker 3: as something I do. My mind is maybe not interested
Speaker 3: or patient enough to really like no melody can survive
Speaker 3: my scrutiny. Basically, if I work on something too much
Speaker 3: on Tuesday, it's sort of like dead to me by Wednesday,
Speaker 3: and I don't care about it anymore because I feel
Speaker 3: like the muse didn't play ball or something. Yea, So
Speaker 3: the song a day thing, you know, I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think we spoke about that, but did we?
Speaker 2: No, I want to ask you about that. I've heard
Speaker 2: Maggie Rodgers talk about that about the group. Is that
Speaker 2: what you're talking about? The writing group sort of like workshopping, yes,
Speaker 2: songs and there was an assignment.
Speaker 4: That's right. Yes.
Speaker 3: The Song and Day group is led by our intrepid
Speaker 3: Captain phil Winrobe who's a producer out of New York
Speaker 3: and he created this game I think with Damien Rice.
Speaker 3: I think it was Damien and him that first thought
Speaker 3: of it. So in that Rick Ruben advice way of
Speaker 3: be the maker and then later be the listener. I
Speaker 3: the Song of Day was this repetition of like you
Speaker 3: have to to qualify kind of in a good natured
Speaker 3: way to stay in to not get booted, because the
Speaker 3: consequence of not showing up on Monday is like, okay,
Speaker 3: well then you're out. You know. Good, we all love you,
Speaker 3: like we all raise a toast to you, but you're out,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: But it's like all warm and good nature y.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, But it's good though, because it sounds
Speaker 2: like with the people festival. Yeah, And that was sort
Speaker 2: of an assignment. The song a Day is sort of
Speaker 2: an assignment.
Speaker 3: Yes, And because of the need to keep going, there
Speaker 3: would be kind of at the end of the seven days,
Speaker 3: I would maybe be aware that I caught a little
Speaker 3: a few messages in a bottle, like something just came
Speaker 3: clearly through arrived intact. I managed to like lob it
Speaker 3: out into the song a day community and then and
Speaker 3: then I would kind of know that if I listen
Speaker 3: back to these right now, I'm going to I'm going
Speaker 3: to make them worse, I'm gonna pick them apart, whatever.
Speaker 3: But if I just wait a few months, like let
Speaker 3: the compost start to regenerate the soil, like Liz let
Speaker 3: it sit. It was really amazing because I did four
Speaker 3: or five of these, and the group changed each time.
Speaker 3: There was kind of like a few of us that
Speaker 3: did everyone, and by the end there was you know,
Speaker 3: twenty something songs from which this record was essentially born.
Speaker 3: But I gave myself the distance between the doing and
Speaker 3: the beginning to I don't know understand what amount of
Speaker 3: reformulation any of them needed. I waited there was a
Speaker 3: window between the doing and the and the and the
Speaker 3: kind of working on them.
Speaker 2: Are you working on any new music?
Speaker 3: No, But I've had that kind of inclination, you know,
Speaker 3: like a craving almost.
Speaker 4: It's it's sort of you know, it's sort of like.
Speaker 3: You never know that you're in an epoch until you're
Speaker 3: out of it. Like I didn't know in my twenties
Speaker 3: that moment was like actually a thing, like it was
Speaker 3: a time I will be able to remember.
Speaker 4: I never you never know when you're in the moment
Speaker 4: of writing.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like until you notice, oh, I haven't
Speaker 3: haven't felt that craving, haven't been in that mind frame.
Speaker 4: I haven't like been receptive to that for a while,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: But honestly, finishing a record is so obliteratingly like.
Speaker 4: It's such a task that there wasn't a lot of room.
Speaker 3: But maybe because it's done now, I'm already starting to
Speaker 3: feel that. Yeah, so I did ask Phil for another
Speaker 3: song a day because now I feel I like being
Speaker 3: inside that it's a phantom community.
Speaker 4: There's yeah. You know, one time in.
Speaker 3: The pandemic, Adam had everybody to his yard for a
Speaker 3: very distant you know, everyone had a picnic blanket like
Speaker 3: thirty feet from each other, and it was Amelia Meath
Speaker 3: from Silvaneso and Beck and Maggie was there that time,
Speaker 3: and Adam Cohen and you know, it's just like a
Speaker 3: mac DeMarco. He did that one and it was the
Speaker 3: first time we'd all you know, been together. To say
Speaker 3: is that was pretty that's pretty cool that we get
Speaker 3: to do that together but alone, you.
Speaker 2: Know, so people like sitting on their blanket and singing
Speaker 2: their song.
Speaker 4: No, not at all.
Speaker 3: We were just hanging like it was song a day
Speaker 3: had happened, and it's such a commitment and it's such
Speaker 3: a you know, our whole week is pointed at this
Speaker 3: like very private exercise that we know other people are
Speaker 3: having the same private exercise, you know, maybe like cramming
Speaker 3: for an exam, like everyone in your class.
Speaker 2: Totally, That's what I just thought of too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like no one can get that information into
Speaker 3: your brain but you.
Speaker 4: But you know everyone's also doing it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, right, so it feels a little better in solidarity.
Speaker 3: But I requested another one and for my birthday this year.
Speaker 3: Hilariously because on Valentine's Day, which is the day after
Speaker 3: my birthday, the first songs came out. And then I
Speaker 3: wrote Phil and said, hey, ps, these songs, for the
Speaker 3: most part on this record came from what the opportunity
Speaker 3: you gave me to like find them, so you're kind
Speaker 3: of the godfather of this record. And he's like, okay,
Speaker 3: well then happy birthday, Let's do another week and it
Speaker 3: can be any week you want. So I picked the
Speaker 3: week when I know I'm not on tour, when I
Speaker 3: know I can get quiet, and we're going to do
Speaker 3: another one in June.
Speaker 2: So that's that's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, we've already started to like send out the invites,
Speaker 3: justin Vernon wanted to do it, kind of think of
Speaker 3: some other friends who have expressed interest and said, like,
Speaker 3: tell me next time it's happening, and yeah, to get
Speaker 3: out of our own way at this point and have
Speaker 3: Phil and Damien create that context, it's such a gift totally.
Speaker 2: Do you need to hear feedback from people when you
Speaker 2: play something new.
Speaker 3: No, I usually feel I'm better served to keep it
Speaker 3: real tight.
Speaker 4: Until I'm pretty sure about where I'm going with it.
Speaker 3: The development of those initial little embryos that were found
Speaker 3: in song a day, it happened like in an isolation
Speaker 3: beyond even usually I kind of self isolate through the
Speaker 3: writing process.
Speaker 4: But I would show MOCKI or Gonzo.
Speaker 3: I would show certain friends, my really dear friend in
Speaker 3: Toronto named Adriann, like she's just sort of always been
Speaker 3: a witness. I kind of like she's always like I
Speaker 3: believe you or I don't know if I believe you
Speaker 3: in this case, the closest collaborator, I would say through
Speaker 3: the writing process besides Song a Day was I became
Speaker 3: pen pals with the director Mike Mills through the Pandemic
Speaker 3: and we were just sort of like this epistolary ping
Speaker 3: pong game that was all about craft and it was
Speaker 3: all about He was in the middle of editing his
Speaker 3: new film Coman Come On that's since come out, and
Speaker 3: I was in you know, kind of isolation Song a
Speaker 3: Day and like, it's really strange, but this friendship bloomed
Speaker 3: right at the beginning of the Pandemic and it became
Speaker 3: kind of this like I don't know what accountability centrifugue
Speaker 3: or something, because there was someone curious listening, he for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, got he received energy from other people's problems,
Speaker 3: like he from solving kind of a problem other than
Speaker 3: his edit. It seemed to always he'd bring something back
Speaker 3: with him from coming into my little laboratory, and then
Speaker 3: he'd leave and go back to what he was working on.
Speaker 3: And similarly he'd send me screen grabs or little bits
Speaker 3: of dialogue or something, and you know, it was sort
Speaker 3: of we were activated by each other's different form like
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know anything about film, and he can.
Speaker 3: He considered music to be like this playground that was
Speaker 3: not responsible to like a two hour arc and character
Speaker 3: development and all of this arduousness that comes with filmmaking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he gave me a lot of really cool homework too.
Speaker 2: I'd very cool.
Speaker 3: I'd send him an early song and you know he
Speaker 3: would or like a song a day the day I
Speaker 3: wrote it. I'd say, I'd lob it over to him
Speaker 3: and say, like, this was my offering today, I feel
Speaker 3: particularly good about it. And then he'd he'd have like
Speaker 3: he was the only person I felt interested in cross
Speaker 3: talk from or in like input from.
Speaker 2: What would he say, Like what sort of feedback would
Speaker 2: he give you?
Speaker 4: He'd often say, can you put that in plain language?
Speaker 3: Like write your lyrics out and then underneath verse fyve
Speaker 3: verse line by line, or just like kind of summarize
Speaker 3: each verse and what you're trying to what you're what
Speaker 3: are you saying with that? Like what do you what
Speaker 3: is the concrete thing you're you're getting at? Because you
Speaker 3: part of my thing is I like speaking around a thing.
Speaker 3: I like creating the the image of what's inside in
Speaker 3: relief kind of and it's sort of like in the
Speaker 3: in like casting ceramics or something. You make a mold
Speaker 3: and then you pour something inside it, and when you
Speaker 3: crack the mold off.
Speaker 4: There's the shape.
Speaker 3: Like in a way lyrically, I like doing I like
Speaker 3: finding a shape in relief, you know. So he would say, Okay,
Speaker 3: I get that you're you're creating a shape and relief,
Speaker 3: but now just describe to me what that shape is
Speaker 3: and then go back and see if you can put
Speaker 3: a little bit more of the clarity of what that
Speaker 3: shape is inside. You know, this is a man who's very,
Speaker 3: very good at narrative.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It was just so helpful because I think I was
Speaker 3: also just trying to find a way to be a
Speaker 3: little bit closer to the quick and I'd say that
Speaker 3: that influence from Mike really found I found him in
Speaker 3: my mind's eye kind of, you know, he's a little
Speaker 3: angel on my shoulder or saying that, is there another
Speaker 3: way to say.
Speaker 2: That, you know, yeah, yeah, I was going to ask
Speaker 2: you if there's somebody in your mind while you're writing,
Speaker 2: But it sounds like he was the little angel. He
Speaker 2: made that wonderful movie with the film that he made
Speaker 2: for the National Yes, and I think he got them
Speaker 2: unstuck as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, And that's how we met, ironically because Aaron
Speaker 3: and brace After people now we've all joined the same
Speaker 3: cult essentially because of what that festival did for me,
Speaker 3: and they asked if I would come and do the
Speaker 3: Q and A for screening for that film in Toronto.
Speaker 3: So that's how I met Mike Goes through that film,
Speaker 3: which I found.
Speaker 4: Incredibly powerful, so powerful, and I hate.
Speaker 3: To say it, but at this point I think I'm
Speaker 3: incredibly late and I have to go on a motherly
Speaker 3: errand to pick someone up, if you know.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you so much for taking
Speaker 2: the time to talk today. It was so much fun.
Speaker 2: I'm loving your album.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: This has been such an interesting conversation and it was
Speaker 3: really really nice to talk to you.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks Device for talking through the inspiration for her new
Speaker 1: album Multitudes. You can hear all of our favorite five
Speaker 1: songs on a playlist at brokenrecord podcast dot com. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com
Speaker 1: slash broken record Podcast, where can find all of our
Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Vantalliday,
Speaker 1: and Eric sam Our. Editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this
Speaker 1: show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
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Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.