Speaker 1: The Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: slight Encore. Because I will regret this, and I know
Speaker 1: you want to go home, just answer one question from me.
Speaker 1: I think of your entire discography, your most ambitious song
Speaker 1: and production ever was the title track to Michael Jackson's
Speaker 1: History album, just based on all the chaos and all
Speaker 1: those things happening. I think I texted you about it.
Speaker 1: I don't think I asked you about it on the show. No,
Speaker 1: we didn't get that far on the show. But the
Speaker 1: thing is is that it's so ambitious that it's not
Speaker 1: a single right when you're working on filler. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing, I believe the Son of a true Artist
Speaker 1: is based on the If you're talking to Stevie's catalog,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the singles chosen, Prince, I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about the singles chosen.
Speaker 2: I like the filler, Yes, I agree, And I.
Speaker 1: Know it's Michael, and I knows you know you're able
Speaker 1: to be blinded by the michaelness of it all. But
Speaker 1: I mean, why did you guys work so hard on
Speaker 1: such an ambitious sounding song, especially in ninety five when
Speaker 1: I know this wasn't invented yet. Right now with this
Speaker 1: and everything that's you know, and I know he's always
Speaker 1: pushed to the limit. Let's go further. When History the
Speaker 1: song first started, was it just a regular ass song?
Speaker 1: And then it was like him like, like, how did
Speaker 1: you get it to what it is now? The most
Speaker 1: at least he did it in concert, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: which I thought he would never do in concert. I'm like, right,
Speaker 1: I can't even play this, but I know.
Speaker 2: No. He ended his the History tour, he ended with
Speaker 2: that song. And so the idea of History was that,
Speaker 2: you know, he had an album called History, and we
Speaker 2: always thought there should be a song that explains the
Speaker 2: title track or what that is. And we had the
Speaker 2: the groove that was on the verse of that song,
Speaker 2: which was right, that kind of thing. We had that
Speaker 2: and he loved that part.
Speaker 1: Of the song.
Speaker 2: But then he said, but it should go somewhere, and
Speaker 2: we said, okay, cool. So the way we envisioned it was,
Speaker 2: let's go to a nice B section bridge and then
Speaker 2: let's go to a very single long course, you know,
Speaker 2: every day create your history, Like we just thought that
Speaker 2: was the perfect thing. But the idea was sonically to
Speaker 2: have each section almost be like a movement right, and
Speaker 2: so then you know, so we had Elmer Bernstein with
Speaker 2: a you know, seventy six piece orchestra. We had boys
Speaker 2: them in Wait those weren't samples, No, no, wait, we
Speaker 2: had Almer Bernstein.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had Michael Jackson. Bu budget yeah you got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a whole different budget thing.
Speaker 1: But it sounds so old, I know.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, no, well we treated I mean, we
Speaker 2: made stuff sound old and made like some of the
Speaker 2: there were speeches that are on there from.
Speaker 1: Yes, we know we did.
Speaker 2: We created all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh, because literally when I heard it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: Jam and Luis are going bomb squad on us. Yea,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. Now I have further respect for
Speaker 1: it that it was.
Speaker 2: Actually yeah, a lot of it was we would take
Speaker 2: something and really screw it up so that it sounded,
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of vibe. The thing that was
Speaker 2: I won't say frustrating about it was that as the
Speaker 2: deadline for the album was coming up, there was a
Speaker 2: song we did called Tabloid Junkie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A Tabloid Junkie was the most easy song to mix,
Speaker 2: should have been anyway, the most easy song to mix,
Speaker 2: And I remember the week. We had a week to
Speaker 2: get done. So I remember Monday, we mixed Tabloid Junkie.
Speaker 2: Michael comes in and listens to it and he goes, yeah, that.
Speaker 1: Sounds really good.
Speaker 3: Would you just turn up the hand claps a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yes, we turn up the handclaps.
Speaker 2: Okay, make me a dad and we'll we'll resumed tomorrow
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: So we do that.
Speaker 2: Next day, exactly the same thing. Next day, exactly the
Speaker 2: same thing. We were like, Michael, this other song to mix,
Speaker 2: this history song, and we said, can we take because
Speaker 2: at the time there were digital recorders, reel to reel recorders. Yes,
Speaker 2: they had forty eight tracks on each machine. We had
Speaker 2: all the boys, de Men's tracks and all of that
Speaker 2: stuff on one reel, forty eight tracks of vocals, we
Speaker 2: had forty eight tracks of the track itself, We had
Speaker 2: forty eight tracks of you know, the Elmer Bernstein Orchestra,
Speaker 2: and we had another tape that had all of Michael's
Speaker 2: vocals on it. Thank you. We said, can we consolidate
Speaker 2: all of these down, like we can just make and
Speaker 2: get everything maybe on two tapes, so maybe it's going
Speaker 2: to be ninety six tracks, but we can get everything
Speaker 2: down no, we.
Speaker 1: Don't want to.
Speaker 2: We don't want to do that just in case we
Speaker 2: want to come back. And it was like Michael, we
Speaker 2: don't have just in case time here, Like we need
Speaker 2: to just mix this record. So Steve Hodge mixed the record.
Speaker 2: We did it at Larrbie North which is now men
Speaker 2: in Mariquan studio. We literally had two machines in one room,
Speaker 2: two machines in another room, two mix boards because there
Speaker 2: wasn't enough room on one mixboard to handle all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And literally as we're mixing, we're walking between the two
Speaker 2: studios to get this mixed done, and we work like
Speaker 2: probably forty eight hours. I don't think we went home.
Speaker 2: I think we worked the Thursday and Friday to get
Speaker 2: at home. We go to mastering. Think Bernie Grumman mastered
Speaker 2: or Brian Garner, one of the two mastered it, and
Speaker 2: we're thinking, okay, who at least we made it. We
Speaker 2: don't hear anything, you know, for a long time until
Speaker 2: the album's actually out.
Speaker 1: No, we put history on.
Speaker 2: He had gone back and redone the mix, and what
Speaker 2: he did was he loved hand claps. He put the
Speaker 2: hand claps in the whole song and the whole idea
Speaker 2: was each section sounded sonically different, so there were big
Speaker 2: hand claps in the one part, there was no handclaps
Speaker 2: in the next part. Then there was a kind of
Speaker 2: a building where it started with a few people singing,
Speaker 2: then more people, and as a singing rose, there was
Speaker 2: more hand claps, and it got bigger and bigger. He
Speaker 2: totally got rid of all that and everything was just
Speaker 2: these handclaps throughout the whole song, and we were.
Speaker 1: Just, do you have a version of your version? Probably somewhere,
Speaker 1: we do, probably somewhere. Thank you for my encore question.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: What's going on everyone? This is cousin Jake, one of
Speaker 3: the producers of the Questlove Show. This is another mini episode.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here with the man himself, Questlove. We've been
Speaker 3: taking a lot of the feedback and questions that you
Speaker 3: have been coming up with from episodes, and recently we
Speaker 3: ran an incredible interview something you've been trying to chase
Speaker 3: down forever. Not just Jimmy jam coming back to QLs,
Speaker 3: but you got Terry Lewis yes and kind of on
Speaker 3: very short notice for us, and it turned into an
Speaker 3: incredible conversation. I love that At the top. You know,
Speaker 3: Jimmy even says he speaks in paragraphs. Terry speaks in
Speaker 3: very succinct, kind of thought bomb sentences.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a gift to have.
Speaker 3: I mean, you went Torik Kanda, right.
Speaker 1: Turka is very curt short to the point, and I'm
Speaker 1: still explaining what an aquarium does you know from back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine. You know.
Speaker 3: The nice thing is is that interview. And just for
Speaker 3: folks that know that happened at night. A lot of
Speaker 3: the Quest Love Show tapings this year have been in
Speaker 3: the late morning, early afternoon. That one because it was
Speaker 3: on a short whim we did. We didn't do it
Speaker 3: at iHeart. We did at CDM Studios. They kind of
Speaker 3: had a hard out at like eleven eleven thirty. You
Speaker 3: just finished the cameras. For those that have been wondering
Speaker 3: on the YouTube, why the last thirty minutes are just
Speaker 3: a montage of photos.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, we ran out of tape.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's funny enough and we can talk about
Speaker 3: it here. Like I couldn't be there. I was up
Speaker 3: in the morning. We tape Jamie Lee Curtis the same day,
Speaker 3: and then my co producer Brittany came up for jam
Speaker 3: and Lewis team.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I asked you that morning.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, what are you planning? You're like, oh man,
Speaker 3: I need like an hour?
Speaker 1: Oh god, you sorry?
Speaker 3: No, how could you apologize to you already know? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it turned into what it turned into, but we held
Speaker 3: one thing back. We just gave it in this episode,
Speaker 3: or I'm about we'll give it right now. You ask
Speaker 3: him on the way out, like literally, you guys are
Speaker 3: grabbing your drinks, packing up, they're flipping lights off. Yeah,
Speaker 3: shout out to Kathleen Conti at CDM. And you asked
Speaker 3: a question about the Michael Jackson History album. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: just they talked about it in a really cool way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, this will mark Jams his third time
Speaker 1: on QLs. He did his Mammoth seven hour thing before
Speaker 1: and then I forgot that. We talked to him pandemic
Speaker 1: right and during the pandemic on online as well, and
Speaker 1: even then we still didn't really get to like nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five ninety six. Whatever was in my head at
Speaker 1: the time was they just mentioned Babyface, and I know
Speaker 1: the Babyface story with Michael Jackson is they gave Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson one month and Lionel Richie sort of came to
Speaker 1: them and said, hey, don't let Michael stall you out
Speaker 1: and take you out the game, because he will try
Speaker 1: to hold on to you like exclusively, and unless you're
Speaker 1: creating like the Lord Jesus Christ, like a person like
Speaker 1: Teddy Riley could probably afford to take even I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, minds you, Teddy Riley did this started the
Speaker 1: Dangerous work in like nineteen ninety and so, so I
Speaker 1: mean that was really the year, like he really got
Speaker 1: popping in eighty seven, eighty eight, all that momentum, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if he didn't have Dangerous to do, I'm almost certain
Speaker 1: that Teddy Riley could have probably knocked out like maybe
Speaker 1: twelve more projects or songs of that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But like Lonal Richie basically told babyfaces, don't let him
Speaker 1: wear you out to the point where you're saying no
Speaker 1: to the other artists because he keeps making you do
Speaker 1: something over and over again. Of course, Michael makes them.
Speaker 1: I forget the name of the song that they did,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was going on a month and
Speaker 1: they were just like, all right, we're out, and so
Speaker 1: I remember them telling me that they did scream kind
Speaker 1: of in record time because they had already created the
Speaker 1: track ahead of time, and usually artists like to be
Speaker 1: there for the process of you know, but they just
Speaker 1: played a track and he instantly felt, you know, the
Speaker 1: scream song. So that was half the work right there.
Speaker 1: But History was the first time that I was slightly
Speaker 1: slightly and people who are young like get mad at
Speaker 1: me for saying this. This This is my version of
Speaker 1: saying that Prince's first ten albums count and then you know,
Speaker 1: everything else is whatever. The thing I didn't like about
Speaker 1: History was because he had such a chip on his
Speaker 1: shoulder to try to prove something, and I know his
Speaker 1: preference for perfection, where if it's too perfect, you're going
Speaker 1: to just get numb after the fourth song, and you
Speaker 1: need highs and lows. You need to hear human Like
Speaker 1: we take advantage of Off the Wall because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a great album, but we're also just responding to
Speaker 1: like a collaboration of actual human beings and spirits captured
Speaker 1: the stuff that you don't hear through a microphone, right
Speaker 1: And if it's too perfect, it just wears you out.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like enough already, I get it. You
Speaker 1: have the loudest kicks ever, the highest snare ever. Your
Speaker 1: engineer is panning stuff in a circle that no one
Speaker 1: else can do. And so by the time I got
Speaker 1: to History, I was just worn out and really didn't
Speaker 1: listen to it. But you know, for the record, I've
Speaker 1: also went on record in my book to say that
Speaker 1: I have a problem with penultimates and last songs, Like
Speaker 1: I don't watch any series the last two episodes of
Speaker 1: streaming series, I don't watch until I know there's another season.
Speaker 1: And so with the History album, like with Smile, the
Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin cover and Yeah, I think I tuned out
Speaker 1: after Smile because that's way too sad to listen to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so when I finally got to History, God damn.
Speaker 1: History is like the most ambitious. It's like Michael Jackson's
Speaker 1: version of Neither of the Living bass Heads by Public Enemy.
Speaker 1: If your hip hop head of a certain ilk and
Speaker 1: you respect certain type of arrangements like it, just the
Speaker 1: song goes all over the place, and it's so ambitious.
Speaker 1: And it was a record in ninety four, so I
Speaker 1: know that MacBook pros and the tools we use now
Speaker 1: weren't you. So I meant a lot that song was
Speaker 1: too ambitious for its own good, and I just hit
Speaker 1: jam up one night, like yo, man, like I know
Speaker 1: that this song came with like like a sacrifice or
Speaker 1: something like what did you have to give up? Like
Speaker 1: your your marriage could be in trouble because it's like, no,
Speaker 1: I got a Mike's called me to the studio whatever,
Speaker 1: and I think he told me a story of like
Speaker 1: there's a really important Lakers game that he wanted to
Speaker 1: see between like it was either MJ and Magic's like
Speaker 1: last last thing together or something. Yeah, and he like
Speaker 1: Mike was like no, like I gotta cut vocals again
Speaker 1: and da da da da da, and He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a really important game. But yeah, no, but
Speaker 1: like when the spirit, you know, he does the Michael
Speaker 1: Jagon when the Spirit hits me thing. So I'd like,
Speaker 1: I I think I listened to that song because I
Speaker 1: know like a lot was sacrificed humanity behind it, yeah,
Speaker 1: to make it happen. So maybe that's why I resonate
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 3: We got three questions that came out of that episode.
Speaker 3: I might add a fourth. This is a real easy one,
Speaker 3: but you're the person to ask. Lyles Leland. I hope.
Speaker 3: I said that right. Asked, is there an instrumental version
Speaker 3: of Chill Sauce by the time in existence Chili sauce? Oh, chill, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Chili sauce not in.
Speaker 1: You know what. Instrumentals are hard to come by in
Speaker 1: Prince world. There's I mean, unless you like have access
Speaker 1: to the stems or whatever. The only time sketch that
Speaker 1: I have that doesn't have any vocals on it. For
Speaker 1: some reason, I have the work reel of the Walk,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know how I got it. But essentially,
Speaker 1: if you listen to Chlorine Bacon Skin, which is this
Speaker 1: Prince at Mars goofing a round on Drummond bass, the
Speaker 1: same thing for the Walk, except Prince's playing in C
Speaker 1: sharp minor so instead of the ki of A. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I do not know of there being an instrumental of
Speaker 1: Chili Sauce.
Speaker 3: Have you ever experienced a duo as in sync as
Speaker 3: Jamin Lewis.
Speaker 1: I have not experienced a duo as instinct of Jam
Speaker 1: and Lewis. However, I know a trio and I will
Speaker 1: probably say the most ideal relationship between three entities that
Speaker 1: are creatives that I have not seen one spot nor
Speaker 1: wrinkle when Dave was here with us, I would look
Speaker 1: at the friendship of Dayla Soul with absolute envy, Like
Speaker 1: there's no song or album they created that made me
Speaker 1: more enviable than just the bond that they have with
Speaker 1: each other. Like you've heard Maco laugh a lot on
Speaker 1: Daylight Rocket like that really thing. Yeah, So, I mean
Speaker 1: there's at least twenty moments where I've either walked back
Speaker 1: by a dressing room or like say what up to
Speaker 1: them as they're pulling up to a van and we
Speaker 1: would do like you know Coyle shows together whatever, Like
Speaker 1: Dave will say something and then Macio will laugh and
Speaker 1: kind of post rounds it up with like the eye roll,
Speaker 1: like this guy, Like I didn't know that adult, non
Speaker 1: high school friends could be at that level where the
Speaker 1: roots just got to that level. We're that level on stage,
Speaker 1: which is how I prefer it. I'm more to myself
Speaker 1: off stage, so I can't even say I might be
Speaker 1: the problem in that equasy. So, and the other group
Speaker 1: is the Beastie Boys touring with them like post ill communication,
Speaker 1: they got super enlightened, and so you know, we thought
Speaker 1: we were doing the License to Ill tour.
Speaker 3: You mean at that point when they were getting into
Speaker 3: bettering freedom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like we thought we were walking into at least
Speaker 1: Paul's boutique. The boys and all right, where's the beer cannon,
Speaker 1: where's the where's the women at? Wait? What are these
Speaker 1: kids doing here? And wait, you guys are playing basketball? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could travel with your own basketball court and humus again.
Speaker 1: And literally I think Kamoral and I kind of had
Speaker 1: like a disappointed thing, like, man, they're all like nice
Speaker 1: and family men and joking with each other like that
Speaker 1: was our introduction to that synergy. But even then when
Speaker 1: when y'aut passed, That's the thing I actually remember is
Speaker 1: just they kind of had like a magic circle thing
Speaker 1: happening before they go on stage, like they just get
Speaker 1: each other hyped up and stand in their circle, arms
Speaker 1: around each other like it's, you know, like they're about
Speaker 1: to conquer the world or whatever. So I've seen that
Speaker 1: a few times.
Speaker 3: So yeah, trios, last question in this jam and Lewis
Speaker 3: Batch and this week is appropriate to ask when we're
Speaker 3: recording this overall favorite Prince deep cut today, my.
Speaker 1: Favorite deep cut? When do we put this on the air.
Speaker 3: We'll probably put this on the air next week.
Speaker 1: All right, So I'm happy to announce. Actually it went
Speaker 1: live as we're taping this. I believe like maybe it
Speaker 1: went up like maybe ten minutes ago. Rolling Stone assigned
Speaker 1: me my first real task in crafting for the tenth
Speaker 1: anniversary of Prince's passing. They asked me to just put
Speaker 1: together like ten of my favorite print songs. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know I've used this cliche before, but you know
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get in trouble for trying to
Speaker 1: name my favorite oxygen gas. For that, I took in right.
Speaker 1: So I went a step further and I said, well,
Speaker 1: can I do more than ten? They were like, well,
Speaker 1: do you have time to do more than ten? So
Speaker 1: I fucked them around and wrote a whole damn book.
Speaker 1: I wound up doing two hundred, and then it started
Speaker 1: to turn into a memoir, because again I have this
Speaker 1: where it happened to turn and shit into me once
Speaker 1: I get the assignment. However, for Rolling Stone, I whittled
Speaker 1: it down to one hundred songs in which and I
Speaker 1: was very specific in not trying to craft like Prince's
Speaker 1: best songs or like my rankings, because that gets you
Speaker 1: in trouble. So I will say that these are very
Speaker 1: specific to how these songs affected me, and a lot
Speaker 1: of your favorites are there, A lot of your non
Speaker 1: favorites are there. So yeah, it's live on Rollingstone dot com.
Speaker 1: Right now, I will quickly read one hundred to ninety
Speaker 1: and then of course you have to if you buy
Speaker 1: the physical copy of Rolling Stone they have my top
Speaker 1: ten in there. If you go online you will see
Speaker 1: the remaining ninety. All right, So number one hundred is
Speaker 1: alphabet street. Number ninety nine is in a large room
Speaker 1: with no light. Ninety eight is visions slash dream Factory.
Speaker 1: Number ninety seven is uptown. Number ninety six is she
Speaker 1: Spoke to Me. Ninety five is thirteen by Madhouse, ninety
Speaker 1: four is purple Music. Ninety three is our Destiny slash
Speaker 1: Roadhouse Garden, ninety two is anti Christian, ninety one is
Speaker 1: why you want to treat me so bad? And ninety
Speaker 1: is another lever hole in your head the twelve inch
Speaker 1: version only. So those are a ten for.
Speaker 3: You and you over delivered on that question. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Just as a general reminder, please if you go to
Speaker 3: Questlovesupreme dot com, the original name of the former podcast,
Speaker 3: there's a contact to us form write your questions that
Speaker 3: is the best way to send them. Otherwise, DM the
Speaker 3: QLs channel. Do not Questlove. You'll never get received. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but thank you. And also I know we asked this
Speaker 3: a lot, but I think when we changed our name,
Speaker 3: our reviews changed in Apple podcasts. Please, if that's how
Speaker 3: you consume, leave us a review, give us a rating,
Speaker 3: spread the word. It's how we do this week to week.
Speaker 3: Thank you all, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio.