WEBVTT - Extended Cut: Brian Eno and Rick Rubin 0:00:15.436 --> 0:00:23.476 Pushkin. Hey, y'all, it's justin Richmond here. The Broken Record 0:00:23.516 --> 0:00:26.356 team has been revisiting some of our favorite episodes and 0:00:26.436 --> 0:00:32.476 releasing new extended cuts via pushnik, our Apple podcast subscription program. 0:00:32.516 --> 0:00:35.356 To hear more extended cut episodes like this one, visit 0:00:35.396 --> 0:00:38.436 our show page and Apple Podcasts and start your free 0:00:38.436 --> 0:00:41.676 trial today. We're giving you a taste of what these 0:00:41.716 --> 0:00:45.356 extended cuts sound like with this version of Rick's conversation 0:00:45.556 --> 0:00:49.196 with Brian Eno. This episode was recorded just before the 0:00:49.276 --> 0:00:53.796 debut of Enos Sonos radio station The Lighthouse, where ENO's 0:00:53.836 --> 0:00:57.876 programmed day's worth of unreleased tracks from various errors in 0:00:57.916 --> 0:01:01.476 his career. In this episode, we get to hear Rick 0:01:01.516 --> 0:01:04.636 and you Know, discuss the works that changed ENO's conception 0:01:04.756 --> 0:01:08.276 of art, the way lyrics generally hold very little water 0:01:08.316 --> 0:01:10.356 for the both of them, and more on the way 0:01:10.516 --> 0:01:14.876 Eno incorporates randomness into his music. To hear more extended 0:01:14.916 --> 0:01:18.716 cuts of our conversations with artists like The Beastie Boys, Quests, Love, 0:01:19.116 --> 0:01:23.996 Brandy Carlyle, Tanya Tucker, and Moby, subscribe to Pushnick on 0:01:24.076 --> 0:01:27.476 Apple Podcasts for four ninety nine a month. You'll get 0:01:27.516 --> 0:01:31.996 exclusive content like the Broken Record Extended Cuts and uninterrupted 0:01:32.076 --> 0:01:36.116 ad free listening across fourteen shows in the Pushkin Industry's catalog, 0:01:36.436 --> 0:01:40.276 including Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History and The Happiness Lab with 0:01:40.396 --> 0:01:44.436 doctor Laurie Santos. Search for Broken Record and Apple podcasts. 0:01:44.796 --> 0:01:47.676 Visit our show page and sign up there. You can 0:01:47.676 --> 0:01:54.356 try it for free for seven days. This is Broken 0:01:54.356 --> 0:01:57.556 Record liner Notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. 0:02:02.956 --> 0:02:04.876 I'm going to start in a funny place because just 0:02:04.956 --> 0:02:07.076 now before we start, I was thinking about a lot 0:02:07.116 --> 0:02:09.596 of things, and the last thought that came up before 0:02:09.596 --> 0:02:12.756 I made notes this morning was to ask what was 0:02:12.796 --> 0:02:17.676 the last bit of technology to come along that has 0:02:17.996 --> 0:02:21.996 influenced the way you work? There have been a few. 0:02:22.276 --> 0:02:25.956 I've been working quite a lot with my friend Peter Chilvers, 0:02:25.996 --> 0:02:30.636 who's an musician and a CODA and we've been working 0:02:30.716 --> 0:02:37.956 on ways of manipulating MIDI automatically and effectively. What we're 0:02:37.996 --> 0:02:42.796 doing is taking a MIDI signal and subjecting it to 0:02:42.956 --> 0:02:47.836 various probabilistic mutations. So, for instance, you have a stream 0:02:47.916 --> 0:02:51.756 of information going into the MIDI and you say leave 0:02:51.796 --> 0:02:55.116 out thirteen percent of that or twenty two percent or 0:02:55.156 --> 0:02:57.956 whatever you choose. So if you have a drum part, 0:02:58.356 --> 0:03:01.476 it sounds like the drummer's dropping a beat every so often, 0:03:02.236 --> 0:03:07.716 or we can say things like every one in twenty beats, 0:03:07.996 --> 0:03:12.636 double it or move it by a quarter beat. So 0:03:12.676 --> 0:03:17.116 we can take parts that are fairly fixed or which 0:03:17.116 --> 0:03:19.996 are loops in fact, and we can suddenly bring them 0:03:19.996 --> 0:03:24.236 to life in some very very interesting and uncanny ways. 0:03:24.676 --> 0:03:28.316 It doesn't really sound like what humans would do, but 0:03:28.396 --> 0:03:31.236 it doesn't sound like what machines do either, so it's 0:03:31.236 --> 0:03:35.876 an interesting new zone. I think I've always liked those 0:03:35.956 --> 0:03:39.076 zones between the human and the mechanical. This is why 0:03:39.116 --> 0:03:42.116 I love all the voice treatments that are going on 0:03:42.196 --> 0:03:45.636 now so much, because that's always what I wanted to hear. 0:03:45.836 --> 0:03:48.396 One the one thing that used to be sacred you 0:03:48.396 --> 0:03:51.236 could never touch was the voice, and I always thought, 0:03:51.276 --> 0:03:55.036 why not. You know, it's just another piece of electronic material, 0:03:55.156 --> 0:03:57.196 like anything else. We can do what we like with it. 0:03:57.836 --> 0:03:59.516 Do you ever feel like going the other way? Do 0:03:59.556 --> 0:04:05.236 you ever start with something that synthetical programmed and decide 0:04:05.316 --> 0:04:09.516 to recreate it with traditional instruments? Have you ever done that? 0:04:10.316 --> 0:04:14.796 I've done that, and it hasn't always been very successful. 0:04:15.396 --> 0:04:18.956 In fact, it's actually rather rarely being successful for me, 0:04:19.676 --> 0:04:23.196 and I think it's because what I enjoy about the 0:04:23.316 --> 0:04:27.196 use of the electronics and the computers is that they 0:04:27.236 --> 0:04:31.036 do things that humans can't do, and I really like 0:04:31.196 --> 0:04:34.156 that area just between what we can do and what 0:04:34.196 --> 0:04:38.116 machines can do. There's this sort of new area that 0:04:38.236 --> 0:04:41.156 is appearing. I mean, people are noticing it more and more, 0:04:41.236 --> 0:04:44.876 particularly with vocals. Suddenly there are these ways of singing 0:04:44.916 --> 0:04:48.916 that you've never heard before. And what's very interesting, of course, 0:04:48.996 --> 0:04:51.516 is that a new generation of people are learning to 0:04:51.556 --> 0:04:54.476 sing like that. I don't know if you've ever seen 0:04:54.516 --> 0:04:58.836 any of those wonderful things on YouTube where young people 0:04:58.916 --> 0:05:02.356 have clearly heard a Rihannah record or something like that 0:05:02.396 --> 0:05:05.436 and thought, oh, that's great, I'm going to sing like that, 0:05:05.716 --> 0:05:08.196 and they don't actually realize that it's done with an 0:05:08.236 --> 0:05:11.996 auto tune. Yes, that it was not possible to sing 0:05:12.116 --> 0:05:15.276 like that until somebody did it with a machine, and 0:05:15.316 --> 0:05:18.396 then somebody else thought, well, it's possible, so I'll do it. 0:05:19.316 --> 0:05:23.116 In the case of the first example, where you're removing 0:05:23.196 --> 0:05:26.556 bits of media information, would you pick a number like, 0:05:26.676 --> 0:05:30.156 let's try eighteen, let's try twenty two, Let's and listen 0:05:30.156 --> 0:05:32.116 to all the results and then pick the one that's best. 0:05:32.276 --> 0:05:34.756 Is that typically how it works well. I can change 0:05:34.796 --> 0:05:37.596 the parameters as as the thing is running. So if 0:05:37.876 --> 0:05:40.716 if I'm running a drum loop, for example, a MIDI 0:05:40.756 --> 0:05:44.596 drum loop, I can sort of think, Okay, what happens 0:05:44.596 --> 0:05:48.476 if I give it seven percent of mutation of or 0:05:48.636 --> 0:05:53.396 what happens if I leave out fifty? You know what 0:05:53.436 --> 0:05:57.036 happens actually is that you get Elvin Jones. If you 0:05:57.316 --> 0:06:01.236 leave at a very big percentage, it sounds like Alvin Jones. 0:06:01.316 --> 0:06:04.916 It's very interesting. You still have the sort of fragmentary 0:06:04.996 --> 0:06:09.196 skeleton of the original drum part, but it accents in 0:06:09.236 --> 0:06:13.796 the strangest places. So what I can do, So what 0:06:13.836 --> 0:06:16.916 I have been doing quite a lot is tuning the 0:06:16.996 --> 0:06:19.796 system so that it starts to get into that interesting 0:06:19.836 --> 0:06:24.436 area of quasi human and then I run it several 0:06:24.436 --> 0:06:27.716 times and I can record the MIDI that comes out. 0:06:28.436 --> 0:06:33.436 So sometimes there will be a particularly interesting section where 0:06:33.716 --> 0:06:37.676 the drummer does something really quite extraordinary and does something 0:06:37.716 --> 0:06:41.236 that you think, wow, I've never heard of drummer do that, 0:06:41.276 --> 0:06:45.316 and I love it. So then since I've recorded the MIDI, 0:06:45.436 --> 0:06:50.436 I can use that as my basic loop, that section 0:06:50.556 --> 0:06:53.396 that I thought was amazing, that can be the basic loop, 0:06:53.956 --> 0:06:57.356 and then I can again do some variations and mutations 0:06:57.356 --> 0:07:01.316 on that. So sometimes the process is sort of iterated 0:07:01.316 --> 0:07:04.916 two or three times to get somewhere I like. Now. 0:07:04.956 --> 0:07:07.796 I should say that very little of this stuff have 0:07:07.876 --> 0:07:11.316 I actually released. It's still in the stage of where 0:07:11.316 --> 0:07:14.476 I'm just playing with it and fascinated by it. But 0:07:14.516 --> 0:07:17.316 I've also been using it in a way that I 0:07:17.396 --> 0:07:22.836 have released it with them ambient music. So since a 0:07:22.876 --> 0:07:25.676 lot of the work that I've done that I call 0:07:25.716 --> 0:07:34.596 ambient involves long looped melodies, often several of them playing asynchronously, 0:07:34.916 --> 0:07:38.676 the loops collide with each other in different ways all 0:07:38.716 --> 0:07:43.316 the time, so there's always new combinations. I've been using 0:07:43.356 --> 0:07:46.196 the scriptures, this is what we call them, the scriptures 0:07:47.356 --> 0:07:51.316 in those as well, so that for instance, a melody 0:07:51.436 --> 0:07:56.556 might have say fifteen notes in it, or eleven notes 0:07:56.676 --> 0:08:00.196 or something like that, and three or four of them 0:08:00.476 --> 0:08:05.996 can manifest differently, so they are two or three choices 0:08:06.036 --> 0:08:10.716 for what those particular notes can become. There's always a 0:08:10.796 --> 0:08:14.556 sort of it's a very organic sounding variation going on. 0:08:14.996 --> 0:08:19.196 It's it's very interesting and the results don't sound at 0:08:19.236 --> 0:08:23.556 all computerish. That's what's nice that people listen to them 0:08:23.596 --> 0:08:26.356 and think, oh, that's nice. How did you do that? 0:08:27.436 --> 0:08:31.076 When you tell them, they're inevitably disappointed because they thought 0:08:31.156 --> 0:08:35.836 it was a moment of artistic inspiration, And I say 0:08:36.076 --> 0:08:39.596 it was. It just happened somewhere else. Further back along 0:08:39.596 --> 0:08:45.236 the line, would you say that the random aspect of 0:08:45.276 --> 0:08:49.796 the process is always at work free for you? I 0:08:49.876 --> 0:08:52.436 like things when there's a layer of surprise, I suppose, 0:08:52.556 --> 0:08:56.116 and it's not because I have this John Cage and 0:08:56.276 --> 0:08:58.836 faith in randomness. For him it was a sort of 0:08:58.876 --> 0:09:04.236 religious feeling that randomness tied you into the synchronicity of 0:09:04.276 --> 0:09:09.756 the world somehow. By using randomness, you allowed the state 0:09:09.796 --> 0:09:12.676 of things to affect your work. It's a nice idea, 0:09:12.716 --> 0:09:14.916 and I like it and I respect in his work. 0:09:15.516 --> 0:09:20.156 For me, it's a way of searching a musical space 0:09:20.236 --> 0:09:24.116 that I wouldn't do using just my taste. I mean, 0:09:24.156 --> 0:09:27.796 one's taste tends to propel you into the same areas 0:09:27.836 --> 0:09:30.636 over and over again. We all develop a set of 0:09:30.676 --> 0:09:35.596 preferences and habits about where we go. The interesting thing 0:09:35.596 --> 0:09:39.596 about randomness is that sometimes you're taken somewhere that you 0:09:39.636 --> 0:09:44.236 didn't expect to go, and sometimes that turns out to 0:09:44.276 --> 0:09:48.196 be a really interesting new place. So randomness for me 0:09:48.396 --> 0:09:51.956 is really just a tool, just a way of taking 0:09:51.956 --> 0:09:54.956 me somewhere different. So it's not random for the sake 0:09:54.996 --> 0:09:59.276 of random. But through the random process you find something 0:09:59.356 --> 0:10:01.596 new that you're looking for that you didn't know you 0:10:01.636 --> 0:10:05.876 were looking for. Essentially, that's exactly right. Yes, something happens, 0:10:05.876 --> 0:10:09.996 and you kind of recognize that, you think, yes, makes sense, 0:10:10.636 --> 0:10:14.956 even though it's a little bit like neural networks. You know, 0:10:15.036 --> 0:10:18.316 if you if you work with neural networks, they come 0:10:18.356 --> 0:10:25.876 to decisions or propositions that you don't really you didn't 0:10:25.916 --> 0:10:29.876 know before. They're unfamiliar, but you also don't actually know 0:10:29.956 --> 0:10:33.356 how it got there. So the reason I think this 0:10:33.436 --> 0:10:37.516 is interesting is because I think what makes any work 0:10:37.556 --> 0:10:42.756 of art interesting is or gripping or effective, is the 0:10:42.836 --> 0:10:47.836 feeling that somebody was living, somebody was living it, somebody 0:10:47.956 --> 0:10:53.036 was alert and alive and passionate in some way. And 0:10:53.756 --> 0:10:56.076 the way you get into that state is by being 0:10:56.116 --> 0:11:00.316 an unfamiliar territory. I think you're you're most alive when 0:11:00.356 --> 0:11:04.556 you're not quite sure what is going on, when you're 0:11:04.596 --> 0:11:07.556 you're slightly flying by the seat of your pants and 0:11:07.676 --> 0:11:12.596 you have to ootiate it somehow. That's why we love 0:11:12.636 --> 0:11:16.516 improvisation so much, because people are deliberately putting themselves at 0:11:16.636 --> 0:11:21.276 risk in a way, soaring out into the unknown, and 0:11:21.876 --> 0:11:25.236 somehow dealing with it. And that process of hearing someone 0:11:25.356 --> 0:11:28.996 dealing with it is the difference between life and death 0:11:29.036 --> 0:11:31.676 in a piece of work, I think, as opposed to 0:11:32.596 --> 0:11:35.316 a person who's just playing a thing they've done a 0:11:35.356 --> 0:11:38.796 thousand times before and they don't sound like they're particularly 0:11:38.836 --> 0:11:41.716 interested in it. They're just doing it right. They're not 0:11:41.796 --> 0:11:47.436 doing it well in particular. So I suppose all of 0:11:47.476 --> 0:11:51.796 the strategies and techniques that I use, and there are 0:11:51.876 --> 0:11:55.716 quite a lot of them, besides randomness, are really ways 0:11:55.756 --> 0:12:00.516 of trying to find myself in a new place, because 0:12:00.556 --> 0:12:02.556 I get excited when I'm in a new place. I 0:12:03.196 --> 0:12:06.436 like being in unfamiliar surroundings. I always used to say 0:12:06.436 --> 0:12:11.916 that artists are either cowboys or farmers, really, and they're 0:12:11.956 --> 0:12:14.356 both both ways of being an artist to find, you know, 0:12:14.756 --> 0:12:18.436 the farmer wants to find a piece of territory and 0:12:18.676 --> 0:12:22.116 fully explore it and exploit it. You know, you could 0:12:22.156 --> 0:12:25.436 say the last twenty years of Mandrea, and was like that. 0:12:25.436 --> 0:12:29.956 When Mondrea finally settled on the style that we all 0:12:30.036 --> 0:12:34.036 know him for, he just carried on doing it. But 0:12:34.756 --> 0:12:37.276 the other kind of artist is the one who just 0:12:37.396 --> 0:12:41.636 wants to find somewhere new. He just wants to find 0:12:41.676 --> 0:12:45.116 the next frontier, the next piece of territory, and that's 0:12:45.156 --> 0:12:49.316 what he gets turned on by. So I think I'm 0:12:49.396 --> 0:12:53.076 more in the second category, though, people listening to my 0:12:53.156 --> 0:12:56.036 work would say, but it all sounds exactly the same, Brian. 0:13:00.716 --> 0:13:03.716 Do you have that same approach in life beyond art? 0:13:03.796 --> 0:13:06.836 Are you an explorer? Have you lived all over the world? 0:13:06.916 --> 0:13:10.396 Do you continue to put yourself off in new situations 0:13:11.156 --> 0:13:13.996 as a human being as opposed to an artist. I 0:13:14.156 --> 0:13:17.916 have such an amazing amount of inertia, you wouldn't believe it. 0:13:18.356 --> 0:13:21.996 I wouldn't leave my studio if I had the choice. 0:13:21.996 --> 0:13:25.276 Probably now it's not that bad. But the only reason 0:13:25.356 --> 0:13:27.596 I ever go anywhere really is because I don't have 0:13:27.596 --> 0:13:31.156 a choice. For instance, I had to go to New 0:13:31.236 --> 0:13:36.076 York in nineteen seventy eight to do something for a week, 0:13:36.516 --> 0:13:39.436 and it was a nice, lovely weather when I arrived. 0:13:39.476 --> 0:13:43.956 It was this time of year somebody said, well, I've 0:13:43.996 --> 0:13:46.556 got a sublet if you want to stay, and I 0:13:46.676 --> 0:13:50.276 ended up spending five years there just because it was 0:13:50.316 --> 0:13:53.676 a nice day when I arrived. Yes, I didn't have 0:13:53.716 --> 0:13:56.036 any intention of living in New York. And then I 0:13:56.156 --> 0:13:59.996 left New York because I had to go to Tokyo 0:14:00.076 --> 0:14:02.476 to do something. And I was away in Tokyo and 0:14:02.676 --> 0:14:08.796 somebody robbed my studio and took everything. Actually everything was gone, 0:14:09.516 --> 0:14:12.156 and somebody rang me up and said, your whole studio 0:14:12.196 --> 0:14:15.716 has disappeared, and I suddenly had this feeling of relief. 0:14:15.876 --> 0:14:18.716 I thought, oh, I don't have to go back to 0:14:18.756 --> 0:14:22.716 New York then, So then I moved to Toronto after 0:14:22.756 --> 0:14:26.276 that for a little while. But I don't really move 0:14:26.436 --> 0:14:29.436 very much unless I have to for some reason, or 0:14:29.516 --> 0:14:33.076 unless I don't plan things very well. I'm pretty happy 0:14:33.116 --> 0:14:35.556 wherever I am. Actually, I think we have that incoming. 0:14:35.996 --> 0:14:41.436 And it's funny. I'm wondering if the urge to adventure 0:14:42.316 --> 0:14:47.036 creatively is the balance for the fact that we lived 0:14:47.036 --> 0:14:50.956 such her metic lives. I think that's a very good theory. Yes, 0:14:51.796 --> 0:14:55.476 I know that whatever I'm doing in my work always 0:14:55.516 --> 0:14:57.916 seems to be balancing what is happening in the rest 0:14:57.916 --> 0:15:00.556 of my life. For instance, when I lived in New York, 0:15:00.596 --> 0:15:05.036 I lived on a very very very noisy corner. It 0:15:05.116 --> 0:15:09.556 was on the corner of Broom and Broadway, so Broadway, 0:15:10.236 --> 0:15:13.196 very busy street, and then Broom was the cross street 0:15:13.236 --> 0:15:15.196 where all the big trucks used to go on their 0:15:15.236 --> 0:15:17.796 way to the tunnel. I lived at the top of 0:15:17.796 --> 0:15:19.756 the building, but it used to kind of rock with 0:15:19.796 --> 0:15:23.476 this sound. And it was whilst I lived there that 0:15:23.556 --> 0:15:27.836 I made the quietest music I've ever made. And I'm 0:15:27.876 --> 0:15:30.076 sure what I was trying to do was to make 0:15:31.076 --> 0:15:33.556 the place in the music that I needed to be 0:15:33.636 --> 0:15:37.316 able to get to sometimes as a relief from living 0:15:37.316 --> 0:15:41.836 in New York. And then I moved back to England 0:15:41.876 --> 0:15:45.836 about two years later, three years later, and I moved 0:15:45.836 --> 0:15:48.236 to the countryside, to the town that I grew up in, 0:15:49.076 --> 0:15:55.316 very quiet, small country town. And then I made the 0:15:55.356 --> 0:15:58.676 loudest music I'd ever made in my life. Again, I 0:15:58.716 --> 0:16:01.836 think I needed a bit of city. I needed, you know, 0:16:01.916 --> 0:16:07.196 some grits, some noise. So yes, I think I think 0:16:07.356 --> 0:16:10.276 that's kind of what artists do. They're all is making worlds, 0:16:10.956 --> 0:16:14.076 and sometimes worlds that they would just like to visit 0:16:14.116 --> 0:16:17.156 and look at sometimes worlds they would like to spend 0:16:17.356 --> 0:16:20.996 time in. Earlier, you said we're born with a particular taste. 0:16:21.516 --> 0:16:24.836 Do you feel like your current taste is the taste 0:16:24.876 --> 0:16:28.796 you were born with and or has it evolved and 0:16:28.876 --> 0:16:32.036 changed over the course of your life. That's a very 0:16:32.036 --> 0:16:34.156 good question. I'd love to make one of those sort 0:16:34.196 --> 0:16:39.596 of graphs over time of the things that have changed 0:16:39.636 --> 0:16:42.916 in my taste. I remember when I first started painting, 0:16:42.916 --> 0:16:46.036 because painting was the first artistic thing I did. I 0:16:46.396 --> 0:16:50.076 never learned to play an instrument, so I was a 0:16:50.116 --> 0:16:56.156 painter as a kid. And I remember I loved combinations 0:16:56.196 --> 0:16:59.556 of red and blue that produced the mo violet range 0:16:59.556 --> 0:17:03.756 of the spectrum, and I did loads of paintings just 0:17:03.876 --> 0:17:07.596 exploring that sort of what I felt was a melancholy, 0:17:08.156 --> 0:17:12.356 deep area color, and certainly the melancholy of it was 0:17:12.876 --> 0:17:17.916 a big part of what attracted me, and I don't 0:17:17.916 --> 0:17:20.756 think that's ever gone. I still have that feeling for 0:17:21.636 --> 0:17:26.516 It's sort of a nostalgia for other futures that could 0:17:26.516 --> 0:17:28.676 have happened but didn't. If you see what I mean. 0:17:29.436 --> 0:17:32.636 How old were you at this time that you were painting. Oh, 0:17:32.756 --> 0:17:35.316 I started when I was about nine or ten. But 0:17:35.436 --> 0:17:39.156 I got into the purple area when I was about 0:17:39.236 --> 0:17:42.836 thirteen or fourteen. I was very, very impressed by Mandreal 0:17:43.076 --> 0:17:45.596 from early on. I used him as an example earlier, 0:17:45.636 --> 0:17:50.076 but it was probably because of Mandreal that I thought 0:17:50.156 --> 0:17:52.516 I really want to be a painter more than anything else. 0:17:53.276 --> 0:17:56.796 I loved the simplicity of his pictures because I kept thinking, 0:17:57.116 --> 0:18:02.036 how can something that is so simple objectively, you know, 0:18:02.796 --> 0:18:05.356 how can that have such an effect on me? It 0:18:05.436 --> 0:18:09.476 was the closest thing to magic that I had ever scene. 0:18:09.756 --> 0:18:13.316 And at the same time I was I love duop music. 0:18:13.876 --> 0:18:16.476 Now you're probably a probably a bit too young for duap, 0:18:16.476 --> 0:18:19.076 aren't you, But I'm a fan of duop. I am 0:18:19.076 --> 0:18:21.436 too young for it. But there was a growing up 0:18:21.476 --> 0:18:24.716 in New York there was a radio show on the 0:18:24.756 --> 0:18:28.876 oldie station on Sundays that played two or three hours 0:18:28.876 --> 0:18:31.876 of duop every weekend don Que Reid and I listened 0:18:31.876 --> 0:18:36.036 to it religiously, and I absolutely love dua Yeah, well, 0:18:36.036 --> 0:18:38.356 this that had the same sort of effect on me, 0:18:38.436 --> 0:18:43.636 because duop is a very simple music in many senses. 0:18:43.636 --> 0:18:47.356 You know, it's mainly about voices, not not about lots 0:18:47.396 --> 0:18:50.076 of instruments and lots of playing and In fact, the 0:18:50.156 --> 0:18:52.556 closer it was to a cappella, the more I liked it. 0:18:53.356 --> 0:18:58.276 And I just loved the fact that four voices could 0:18:58.316 --> 0:19:03.636 produce such a range of colors and feelings that seemed 0:19:03.636 --> 0:19:05.516 to me like on a par with Mondrea and you 0:19:05.556 --> 0:19:08.516 know how. And I was always very drawn to this 0:19:08.636 --> 0:19:11.476 idea of doing as much as possible with as little 0:19:11.476 --> 0:19:14.396 as possible. I was never impressed by the kind of 0:19:14.476 --> 0:19:20.116 music that used, you know, complicated time signatures and amazingly 0:19:20.156 --> 0:19:23.396 brilliant playing and so on. It's sort of impressive, but 0:19:23.516 --> 0:19:25.996 for me, there was not the same magic in that 0:19:26.676 --> 0:19:29.436 you could see the trick being done, you know, with 0:19:29.516 --> 0:19:31.836 Mandre and you just you didn't really know where the 0:19:31.956 --> 0:19:34.156 art was being made. Was it in the picture or 0:19:34.276 --> 0:19:37.716 was it? Was it in you? It was it a 0:19:37.716 --> 0:19:41.636 factor of recognition on your part. So that part of 0:19:41.676 --> 0:19:45.396 my taste hasn't changed. I really am always drawn to 0:19:45.516 --> 0:19:50.396 things that look like anybody could do them, where you 0:19:50.476 --> 0:19:53.636 think I could have made that, but I fucking didn't. 0:19:54.996 --> 0:19:59.356 Why didn't I part I don't know if you have 0:19:59.436 --> 0:20:02.476 this feeling, but part of the feeling of one of 0:20:02.476 --> 0:20:05.356 the feelings I always have that tells me something is 0:20:05.396 --> 0:20:14.476 great is kind of anger. I didn't do it. I 0:20:14.516 --> 0:20:19.316 don't have that, but I understand it. I do. I'm 0:20:19.396 --> 0:20:21.476 so thankful when there's something that I like that I 0:20:21.476 --> 0:20:26.036 didn't make, because it's so exciting. It's like wow. Often 0:20:26.156 --> 0:20:29.596 I make things more out of the need for them 0:20:29.636 --> 0:20:33.676 to exist. Yes, that's exactly right. I want this music 0:20:33.716 --> 0:20:37.756 to exist. Yeah. The only reason I make music. The 0:20:37.796 --> 0:20:41.196 reason I got into this line of work was because 0:20:41.436 --> 0:20:45.236 I was experiencing hip hop music and the records that 0:20:45.276 --> 0:20:49.236 were being made didn't reflect what it actually was. So 0:20:49.836 --> 0:20:53.396 my earliest work was really just documenting something that I 0:20:53.436 --> 0:20:56.156 was already a fan of and did. It just didn't 0:20:56.156 --> 0:20:58.836 exist in the world, so I didn't really have a choice. 0:20:59.516 --> 0:21:01.316 So when I do hear something that I like get 0:21:01.396 --> 0:21:05.876 I get very excited because I'm always looking for something 0:21:05.956 --> 0:21:10.596 that feels like a new way In what you said, 0:21:10.636 --> 0:21:13.636 there is something that I've often thought that the things 0:21:13.676 --> 0:21:17.356 that influenced me most in terms of actually making things 0:21:18.116 --> 0:21:22.996 are the things that I hear that don't quite succeed 0:21:24.156 --> 0:21:28.036 where I listen to them, I think that's a brilliant idea. 0:21:28.116 --> 0:21:29.916 And do you know what if they had done this 0:21:30.676 --> 0:21:34.236 and that and this other thing, and left that bit 0:21:34.316 --> 0:21:38.276 out that would be even better. So quite often when 0:21:38.316 --> 0:21:42.196 I'm thinking like that about something, I realize that I'm 0:21:42.236 --> 0:21:46.436 inventing something new which isn't that thing, but isn't something 0:21:46.436 --> 0:21:49.636 that I really had thought about before either. So it's 0:21:50.076 --> 0:21:55.196 quite often hearing something just missing the mark that makes 0:21:55.196 --> 0:21:58.956 me think that could be better. That's been an important 0:21:58.996 --> 0:22:03.956 thread for me. So the other thing about taste. One 0:22:04.076 --> 0:22:09.036 aspect of my taste that has changed over the year 0:22:09.476 --> 0:22:14.716 is that I've become much more fond of messiness or 0:22:16.116 --> 0:22:25.156 incoherence or untidiness in music. Now. Partly this is because 0:22:25.196 --> 0:22:30.276 it is now eminently possible to make things absolutely flawless 0:22:31.316 --> 0:22:36.076 in every respect, And of course when something becomes very possible, 0:22:37.236 --> 0:22:40.996 it becomes quite boring as well. You just you quickly 0:22:41.076 --> 0:22:45.836 tire of it. And so I noticed at first my 0:22:45.956 --> 0:22:50.796 taste in painting started changing when I saw the work 0:22:50.876 --> 0:22:53.156 of the paint of Philip Guston for the first time. 0:22:53.716 --> 0:23:00.556 Philip Guston's work is almost ugly. It's very very clumsy 0:23:00.796 --> 0:23:08.396 and awkwardly painted, but somehow very gripping, and I remember 0:23:08.476 --> 0:23:11.756 thinking do I hate this or do I love it? 0:23:12.596 --> 0:23:15.156 And I really didn't know for quite a long time. 0:23:15.516 --> 0:23:18.236 I was drawn to keep looking at those things. So 0:23:18.956 --> 0:23:22.076 that's something that's changed that that was not a taste 0:23:22.076 --> 0:23:24.476 that I had as a younger person. Do you find 0:23:24.476 --> 0:23:27.796 that if you look back, the most interesting things have 0:23:27.996 --> 0:23:30.916 hit you that way, Like when you first hear something 0:23:31.156 --> 0:23:34.916 or see something, you don't know whether you like it 0:23:35.036 --> 0:23:36.796 or not, or maybe it makes you laugh or it 0:23:36.836 --> 0:23:40.516 seems ridiculous or yes, but then you come around to 0:23:40.996 --> 0:23:45.676 loving it or maybe loving it the most. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. 0:23:46.196 --> 0:23:49.876 I really admired the who I'd loved that my generation 0:23:49.956 --> 0:23:53.636 and things like that, And then they released a song 0:23:53.676 --> 0:23:58.516 called Happy Jack. I thought they shouldn't release lightweight material 0:23:58.676 --> 0:24:02.996 like this. They are a serious, revolutionary, radical band. What 0:24:03.076 --> 0:24:08.396 are they doing releasing this kind of material? And I 0:24:08.476 --> 0:24:14.916 even wrote to Pete Townsend saying saying, you shouldn't be 0:24:14.956 --> 0:24:20.156 releasing stuff like this, you were much too important, or 0:24:20.196 --> 0:24:25.116 something to that effect. And it was about three or 0:24:25.156 --> 0:24:28.396 four months later that I suddenly got it that this 0:24:28.516 --> 0:24:31.076 was a kind of pop art in the sense that 0:24:31.396 --> 0:24:33.836 you know, there was pop art in painting, but there 0:24:33.956 --> 0:24:38.036 wasn't really pop art in pop music. There hadn't been 0:24:38.116 --> 0:24:43.636 that ironic approach to music that the who were using 0:24:43.636 --> 0:24:46.996 them and it didn't really happen again. Well, I think 0:24:47.076 --> 0:24:49.836 Frank Zappa picked it up as well. He was one 0:24:49.876 --> 0:24:53.756 of the great music or ironists in that he sort 0:24:53.756 --> 0:24:56.756 of stood outside of what he was doing and he 0:24:56.836 --> 0:24:59.796 watched it from the outside and fashioned it from the outside. 0:25:00.196 --> 0:25:03.996 Whereas the traditional image of the artist is someone lost 0:25:04.076 --> 0:25:08.316 in their own passions, completely inside the work and kind 0:25:08.316 --> 0:25:12.276 of crying out to the world. Whereas what happened from 0:25:12.316 --> 0:25:16.276 about the mid sixties in pop music, first of all 0:25:16.316 --> 0:25:20.356 in England, I think, was this notion that actually, you 0:25:20.436 --> 0:25:24.156 know what, we've got the history of pop music behind us. 0:25:24.156 --> 0:25:26.436 We can pick and choose and put things together in 0:25:26.436 --> 0:25:29.756 new ways. So it was a much more sort of 0:25:29.956 --> 0:25:34.676 detached process than people had considered pop music to be 0:25:34.796 --> 0:25:38.076 until that time. So that's one example of something where 0:25:38.116 --> 0:25:42.276 I had a real change of mind, and I've had 0:25:42.356 --> 0:25:46.116 more of those in painting than in music. In music, 0:25:46.996 --> 0:25:51.716 I kind of very often have a pretty good feeling 0:25:51.756 --> 0:25:55.116 of what is about to happen. I don't mean that 0:25:55.236 --> 0:26:00.156 I could make it, but I'm not incredibly surprised by it. 0:26:00.476 --> 0:26:04.636 For instance, I remember saying to David Byrne we were 0:26:04.636 --> 0:26:09.436 in a car in Los Angeles in nineteen eighty and said, 0:26:09.916 --> 0:26:11.596 I think there is going to be a kind of 0:26:11.676 --> 0:26:17.716 music where people kind of shout poetry over beats. And 0:26:17.836 --> 0:26:25.676 indeed there was. It wasn't entirely an unscripted idea. I'd 0:26:25.756 --> 0:26:32.836 heard something on NPR. It was a poet, a black 0:26:32.876 --> 0:26:39.356 poet from somewhere in America, reading this poem called Cadillac. 0:26:39.916 --> 0:26:42.476 I spent years trying to find this thing. I never 0:26:42.556 --> 0:26:45.036 found it. I wrote to MPR and I phoned them 0:26:45.116 --> 0:26:49.036