Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of.
Speaker 2: Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Quest Love with Us. We have Fragmented Supremest.
Speaker 1: We got Fantego over in the house. What's up, brother,
Speaker 1: I'm still here, man.
Speaker 3: What up?
Speaker 4: What up?
Speaker 5: We're here, sugar Steve, Yep, I'm not fragmented. I've never
Speaker 5: missed a show except the ones you told me not
Speaker 5: to attend. Wait, when did I ban you, Steve that
Speaker 5: purple roundtable joint?
Speaker 2: Oh you're holding that against me? Yes, but let's move on.
Speaker 2: That's fired.
Speaker 1: In the interact, Ladies and gentlemen, I will say that probably.
Speaker 2: Our guests have single handedly at least changed.
Speaker 1: And I'm making this introduction person, I'm making it about me,
Speaker 1: not about you or the audience.
Speaker 2: I'll say that our guest.
Speaker 1: Today is single handedly probably changed my trajectory or changed
Speaker 1: my perspective on how to deliver music.
Speaker 2: And that's pretty much all I can say.
Speaker 1: I heard their debut album and it just cracked my skull,
Speaker 1: cracked all of our skulls open in a way that
Speaker 1: really hasn't really hasn't done that probably since the days
Speaker 1: of Prime Bomb Squad productions of like Public Enemy and
Speaker 1: Ice Cube, or even the three feet hind rising in
Speaker 1: Daylight Soul's Dead albums of the early nineties. I'll say
Speaker 1: that Rick Rubin has taught us on the show that
Speaker 1: editing is necessary for smart pop music making, and you know,
Speaker 1: the ability to leave the basic necessities for you know,
Speaker 1: for the most part of that theory. You know, with
Speaker 1: self editing has worked miracles for pop music in the
Speaker 1: last seven the year. But our guests have done the
Speaker 1: opposite of that, and they've left no stone unturned.
Speaker 2: As far as a sonic landscape.
Speaker 1: Thereforeever classic debut album, now twenty twenty years old, called
Speaker 1: Since I Left You is probably personally one of my
Speaker 1: top ten favorite albums of all times, with over one
Speaker 1: thousand mind staggering samples and soundbites. I'm an invest We
Speaker 1: all gotta investigate how this was made. When he found
Speaker 1: out that they wanted to come on the show, it
Speaker 1: was an instant yes on my part. Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: honored they're here to share their story with us, because
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I can properly explain to
Speaker 1: you how important there art is. But Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: please welcome the Quest of Supreme the Avalanches.
Speaker 2: We have Robbie and Tony.
Speaker 1: Robbie, what's your last Nameta, Robbie Taita, Welcome.
Speaker 2: Where are you right now?
Speaker 6: Where an?
Speaker 2: How is it over there right now?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's pretty good. We had we had like a
Speaker 6: really hard lockdown last year, but we're coming out of
Speaker 6: it now. It's just really good. We just played our
Speaker 6: first live show in you know, three years on Friday, like, yeah, oh,
Speaker 6: it was incredible. It was it was so amazing, you know,
Speaker 6: just to be with the people again, and you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know, it was just it just felt like
Speaker 6: at the start it felt really strange, like you know,
Speaker 6: it's a little bit rusty, but then you kind of
Speaker 6: get into it for twenty minutes and you're like, I
Speaker 6: remember what it's like and instead of being scared, it's
Speaker 6: like this joyous experience and yeah, I mean we've just
Speaker 6: missed it so much. So it was so good.
Speaker 1: So it's hard like working your muscle memory for what
Speaker 1: the show was when you well with this particular show,
Speaker 1: was it was it craft it from scratch or was
Speaker 1: it the show that you were developing around the time
Speaker 1: when covid first hit us.
Speaker 3: No, it was from scratch, so it was a lot.
Speaker 3: It was like our hometown first show back, brand new show.
Speaker 3: All the equipment too, has been like in storage and
Speaker 3: all covered in dust, and you know, it's like.
Speaker 4: It was like.
Speaker 6: Family and friends. Yeah. Yeah, we had a few technical
Speaker 6: issues that we that we were that seems like every
Speaker 6: like whenever there's a first show, there's always a few
Speaker 6: things that go down or go wrong. But in the
Speaker 6: end it was it was really incredible and we got
Speaker 6: so much love from the audience.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine that the amount of research that
Speaker 1: you have to put into your product as far as
Speaker 1: your creativity is concerned. That I mean, was this time
Speaker 1: off with Covid. Was it a total time off for
Speaker 1: you guys, or was it just like okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to would sad and create new product or did
Speaker 1: you just stop period and just you know, kind of
Speaker 1: see what happens until the world opens.
Speaker 4: It was tough.
Speaker 3: I mean, we went we were finishing an album as
Speaker 3: Covid hit, and we kind of got that done and
Speaker 3: got that, got that ready to go. But like Melbourne's Lockdown,
Speaker 3: we're in it for like two hundred days. It was
Speaker 3: one of the hardest lockdowns.
Speaker 4: In the world.
Speaker 3: And you couldn't you could only leave your house for
Speaker 3: an hour a day.
Speaker 4: There's a curfew in the evenings. Couldn't go from.
Speaker 6: Eight pm till five am. You couldn't go outside your house.
Speaker 2: Will you guys get it right?
Speaker 1: You actually did it right, and you know, the world
Speaker 1: would have actually caught up to you guys. And yeah,
Speaker 1: because after some point, once we saw your numbers go down,
Speaker 1: and then like a whole bunch of movie productions and
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends in the industry, we're going
Speaker 1: to melt, you know, going over over there, to Australia,
Speaker 1: to New Zealand, over the Zealand. You guys are just
Speaker 1: doing it right. So but yeah, you had to be
Speaker 1: strict with it.
Speaker 4: We had to be strict.
Speaker 3: I mean the payoff was like we got to do
Speaker 3: a show, you know, like now you know, and things
Speaker 3: are opening up. But at the time it was hard
Speaker 3: and we thought, well, we've got all this pre time
Speaker 3: will be creative. But it was pretty intense and the
Speaker 3: city was, you know, a ghost town. And really it
Speaker 3: made me learn how much that we rely on the
Speaker 3: collective energy and other people to feed our creativity. So
Speaker 3: even though we had this spare time, like we didn't
Speaker 3: write a lot last year because it was just kind
Speaker 3: of getting through day by day.
Speaker 4: You know, the lockdown was.
Speaker 6: I'm very uninspiring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I was going to say, you know, I
Speaker 1: still want to jump right to since I left you,
Speaker 1: but I do because I don't know about guys personally.
Speaker 2: I do want to know the origins of.
Speaker 1: The group and of you two musically before you even
Speaker 1: like what built to that moment. Could you just give
Speaker 1: us a basic kind of an overlay of what your
Speaker 1: lives were into creatively, like growing up, well, both of
Speaker 1: you were DJs for starters, Like what got you interested
Speaker 1: in DJ culture?
Speaker 2: Like how did it hit you over there?
Speaker 3: We actually, uh, well, we grew up in different suburbs
Speaker 3: of Melbourne and then both ended up in the same
Speaker 3: country town during high school and that's where we met
Speaker 3: and became friends. And we weren't DJs initially. We were
Speaker 3: like bad punk musicians.
Speaker 6: And punk musicians. We say punk because we were so bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was noise, noise.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the Beastie Boys story, like boys, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they started off.
Speaker 3: Punk and then you know that's right, and we So
Speaker 3: we were just I mean, I had no money or whatever,
Speaker 3: so we were buying old guitars and broken guitars and
Speaker 3: organs in junk stores, and then we started to find
Speaker 3: all these old records and it just sort of grew
Speaker 3: from there. I was doing it called a film school
Speaker 3: course at university, and they had a big studio for
Speaker 3: all the film scores, and of course everybody doing that
Speaker 3: course wanted to be like a famous director, so nobody
Speaker 3: wanted to do the soundtrack. So I just had the
Speaker 3: studio to myself for like three years, and there was
Speaker 3: an old end sonic sampler in there that I learned
Speaker 3: how to use and started sampling all these junk store
Speaker 3: records and it just grew from there.
Speaker 4: Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So how were you when you made the transition
Speaker 1: to DJ oriented music, like away from punk and more
Speaker 1: into what we now know is DJ culture.
Speaker 3: I guess it was like a gradual process between the
Speaker 3: ages of like sixteen and twenty.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Was there a particular record that just spoke
Speaker 2: to you that said, like, Okay, this is the direction
Speaker 2: I want to go personally for both of you. Was
Speaker 2: there like one particular album that was for me?
Speaker 3: It was like some of Prince Paul's productions, the Bomb Squad,
Speaker 3: the things you meant.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, So Princeville, he just remixed Since I Left You.
Speaker 7: That was excellent.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And because you know, like the records were finding in
Speaker 3: junk stores were just strange, weird records. They weren't like
Speaker 3: sort of cool, like a lot of the beautiful funk
Speaker 3: and soul records from the States never made it out here,
Speaker 3: you know, so we were they were junk store records.
Speaker 6: It's a lot of music.
Speaker 4: Exotic and strange stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And Prince Paul, I think, showed us that, you know,
Speaker 3: you can use anything and you can make music with
Speaker 3: humor from from all these different bits and pieces, and
Speaker 3: we were like, we can do that, you know. And
Speaker 3: also we love like the Beach Boys and seventies rock
Speaker 3: and stuff, so we thought, would imagine if we like
Speaker 3: take his sort of approach, but like try and make
Speaker 3: like pop songs with it.
Speaker 4: And that's how the whole idea began.
Speaker 2: So how did you two meet each other at high school?
Speaker 6: We met in high school. I was from Melbourne and
Speaker 6: at eighteen went and moved to the country town where
Speaker 6: I met Robbie and it was It was a very
Speaker 6: very for the for the early nineties, very backward kind
Speaker 6: of place like Country Victoria and sorry. It was just
Speaker 6: like a lot of football players and they were all
Speaker 6: the cool people and stuff like that, and like so
Speaker 6: the music people who are into music kind of gravitated
Speaker 6: to each other. So so we kind of started hanging out.
Speaker 6: And the first thing I remember that Robbie was like,
Speaker 6: I was into all types of music, but he played
Speaker 6: me my Bloody Valentine and that just kind of broke
Speaker 6: my brain of like what the hell is this? And
Speaker 6: I was like, all right, this is this is really cool.
Speaker 6: I think I like this guy. I think I like
Speaker 6: his taste in music. And so so from then then
Speaker 6: on we kind of, you know, just had a few
Speaker 6: other little small bands that we were in, and then
Speaker 6: we both moved back down to Melbourne and started you know,
Speaker 6: doing the punk thing just in our land room really badly,
Speaker 6: and it just kind of grew from there.
Speaker 7: Did y'all were y'all in of y'all folks involved in
Speaker 7: music in any way? Or what did your parents do?
Speaker 3: No? I mean my father would. My mom was a teacher,
Speaker 3: but I did. I do remember being fascinated with my
Speaker 3: father's record collection when I was a little kid, and
Speaker 3: when he would let me, like, you know, handle the records,
Speaker 3: I was obsessed with the line of notes and you
Speaker 3: know he had he was like into like the band
Speaker 3: and Bob Gil.
Speaker 4: And the Neil Young and and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Single songwriter stuff.
Speaker 4: That's right, gotcha.
Speaker 2: I know that because you guys.
Speaker 1: Developed early like pre I guess what ninety three ninety
Speaker 1: four is when you guys first started.
Speaker 2: So without sort of like culture.
Speaker 1: Colonialism, well not culture colonialism, but just the the idea
Speaker 1: of like you know, now with the Internet, someone could
Speaker 1: release something in the entire world get it at the
Speaker 1: same time where you know, really before in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: like just it was regionalism, like certain parts of the
Speaker 1: world had certain types of music or whatnot. Now I
Speaker 1: know for Australia kind of the inside joke. And again
Speaker 1: this is before like the really the age of the
Speaker 1: internet spreading becoming law. Like a lot of groups that
Speaker 1: were wildly popular from America that were wildly popular in
Speaker 1: Australia really weren't that big in America. And I always
Speaker 1: wanted to know I never got to talk to anyone
Speaker 1: like specifically from Australia or New Zealand to find out why.
Speaker 1: Like I'll say that there was a point where like
Speaker 1: the Jurassic Five, pre Fergie, Black Eye Peas, Ben Harper,
Speaker 1: like those acts could damn near sell out stadiums, and
Speaker 1: we'd heard about the United States, like yo, man, do
Speaker 1: you know the Black Eyed Peas could sell out a
Speaker 1: stadium in Australia. And this is again back when they
Speaker 1: were just like a club act, like up bar. You
Speaker 1: know that that's why, but what what?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: I noticed with Australia especially for their their embracing of
Speaker 1: like soul music, Like you guys have that big giant
Speaker 1: soul festival down there where you know, you guys have
Speaker 1: this this this festival for soul music that's sort of
Speaker 1: like Coachella, but it's just like all Neil soul artists
Speaker 1: and even now everybody from Kim like and again I've
Speaker 1: my friends have told me that, you know, New Zealand
Speaker 1: and Australia, like we tend to lump just that entire
Speaker 1: area one thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, I see the right and you guys
Speaker 2: are like, we're not the same. But but there's.
Speaker 1: So many like minded cool artists from down there that
Speaker 1: were like influenced by a certain type of soul music
Speaker 1: that's very niche to us here, Like what what was
Speaker 1: the what's the radio like there? Like what is it
Speaker 1: that turns you turn people onto that particular type of
Speaker 1: soul music? Whereas now years later, like a lot of
Speaker 1: these acts are coming out that are like really incredible,
Speaker 1: like Hiatus.
Speaker 2: Coyote and.
Speaker 1: A Theme a Billion, But yeah, what is it about?
Speaker 1: What was the music atmosphere?
Speaker 3: Like it's a rock culture, I would say, like when
Speaker 3: we were starting out, so it's like there's the pub venues.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a very heavy drinking culture in Australia.
Speaker 3: There's the pub venues and all the bands that we
Speaker 3: grew up with came through this pub scene. It's like
Speaker 3: hard rock and roll, like ACDC and this kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I guess there's the Bad Seeds. You came in the
Speaker 3: Bad Seeds as well, or the Birthday Party came out
Speaker 3: of that sort of dark pub scene as well in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: But then something started to change in the nineties exactly
Speaker 3: like you're talking about. And I think it was just
Speaker 3: it was pre internet, but people just just this passion
Speaker 3: for music that wasn't like that.
Speaker 4: And something just started beautiful to started to grow. I
Speaker 4: don't know how happened, but.
Speaker 6: It was very very like when we started playing. You know,
Speaker 6: every band we played, which was just two guitars, bass player, drums,
Speaker 6: and so we rock up with a sampler and the
Speaker 6: sound people were like, what's this?
Speaker 2: What do we do?
Speaker 6: And no one knew what it was. So I was
Speaker 6: like in that in that way we were kind of
Speaker 6: breaking ground in this country as far as like every
Speaker 6: little festival we'd do, it's like every band was the
Speaker 6: same guitar, drums, everything like that, and then we just
Speaker 6: have you know S nine hundred sampler and some shitty
Speaker 6: organs that work sometimes and didn't and so so yeah,
Speaker 6: to your question, it was a very rock and roll
Speaker 6: culture back then in Australia.
Speaker 2: So the was the S nine hundred. Was that did
Speaker 2: your your weapon? That was the jam?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Yeah, then they came with the nine fifty, the
Speaker 7: nine fifty, I think that was the one that the
Speaker 7: nine fifty.
Speaker 4: We were loading.
Speaker 3: We were loading off the songs off floppy disc. When
Speaker 3: we played live, every song was on a different flopping.
Speaker 6: So we'd stop a song and then have to load
Speaker 6: for forty five seconds and just sit down and silence
Speaker 6: or just try and make up some stupid banter in between.
Speaker 2: Again again you guys and DiAngelo. Okay, that's good. To
Speaker 2: this day, the Angelo still uses floppy disk I didn't
Speaker 2: even know that. Oh wow that that can that still
Speaker 2: and know they still made them? Yeah, you know how drive.
Speaker 6: We had to search the internet to find floppy discs.
Speaker 4: We just did. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wait, so to this day you still use it. That's
Speaker 2: your weapon.
Speaker 3: When we were going to pull out the old samplers
Speaker 3: for this show that we just did so we wanted
Speaker 3: to bring back and really show how we made the music.
Speaker 4: But we couldn't find floppy discs anyway.
Speaker 3: Tiny had to order them online and arrived like two
Speaker 3: days before the show, just in time.
Speaker 2: So wow, Really we're not using that.
Speaker 6: We're kind of using computers and now as our main
Speaker 6: backing tracks, so we're not relying on the forty five
Speaker 6: second loads anymore. But we use the sample is just
Speaker 6: a triggle samples during the show because that's the way
Speaker 6: we used to do it. I mean, and it's such
Speaker 6: a fun you know.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 1: What was the period of which you guys discovered like
Speaker 1: breakbeat culture and as far as like at least I
Speaker 1: would like to think that you guys, you know, had
Speaker 1: to put a lot of time in researching like all
Speaker 1: the sounds and for you know, for your arsenal of sounds,
Speaker 1: your drums, your samples and whatnot. So at what point
Speaker 1: did you guys discover or at least like do away
Speaker 1: with kind of your rock backdrop and get to what
Speaker 1: we know is like breakbe culture.
Speaker 3: I think it was like a gradual process and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden realized, like I think we had, you know,
Speaker 3: all these big sounds and big dreams in our heads,
Speaker 3: but you know, no money, and then you start sampling
Speaker 3: an old orchestral record, because a lot of the records
Speaker 3: that we were finding junk stores were like schmaltzy kind
Speaker 3: of like junk like Fifth Andres, Galant strings and games
Speaker 3: all that stuff. But but we were we could find
Speaker 3: beautiful little bits and then realized we can create these
Speaker 3: you know, big sounds with you know, for from a
Speaker 3: two dollar record. And we gradually realized, look, we're not
Speaker 3: great musicians, that are, and we can't sing, but maybe
Speaker 3: we can invent our own little world if we don't,
Speaker 3: if we just use samples, And it sort of grew
Speaker 3: from there, and then you know, a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: records were coming out, Like the Gust Brothers produced the record,
Speaker 3: and you know, there were early Chemical Brothers records, and
Speaker 3: all these records had breakbeats.
Speaker 4: There was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Daylight Soul, and even like the Fart Side Records
Speaker 3: and all these kind of early hip hop records, and
Speaker 3: we kind of in our you know, it's because we're
Speaker 3: so geographically removed from the rest of the world. You know,
Speaker 3: we would just get strange little influences coming through before
Speaker 3: the Internet, So in some way we'd way like a
Speaker 3: bit of Prince Paul, a bit of the Bomb Squad,
Speaker 3: a bit of the Beach Boys, a bit of my
Speaker 3: Bloody Valentine. All kind of made sense to us, and
Speaker 3: we just kind of started developing our own sound from there.
Speaker 1: When you formed the group, was it instantaneous that you
Speaker 1: called yourself the Avalanches or were you just like you know,
Speaker 1: DJ Robbie, DJ Tony.
Speaker 6: We had a few we had a few name incarnations
Speaker 6: before we came up with the Avalanches.
Speaker 3: The Avalanche's name was actually on it was the surf
Speaker 3: rock group from the fifties, one of these bands we
Speaker 3: sampled and then and we used to change our name
Speaker 3: every time we played, and that that one just stuck.
Speaker 2: It just stuck. Oh, just randomly.
Speaker 6: Maybe we had a good gig the day that we
Speaker 6: called ourselves the Avalanches, and we went, this is an
Speaker 6: open We'll stick with this name because I think we
Speaker 6: had a few gigs where we were different names.
Speaker 1: So what was the first product that you guys worked
Speaker 1: on when you decided to form the Avalanches.
Speaker 3: It was like, I think it was a mixtape we
Speaker 3: made in the studio. I was talking about it the
Speaker 3: film school studio that was made to send around to
Speaker 3: various promoters to try and get a gig, try and
Speaker 3: get shows. And then I think they pulled a couple
Speaker 3: of tracks off that and our friend pulled it out
Speaker 3: as our first seven inch that was called rock City.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that was the first release.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, even then, Like was your theory? What was
Speaker 1: the theory based on how to create the music? I
Speaker 1: know a lot of times, especially with where we are
Speaker 1: today with hip hop culture in America, you know, and
Speaker 1: I won't say that flipping samples of course, you know,
Speaker 1: flipping is a way of survival to at least avoid
Speaker 1: you know, lawsuits are getting caught out there, But I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's definitely a slew of producers that flip
Speaker 1: just for the sport of it, you know, especially like
Speaker 1: these post J Dilla times where he could take something
Speaker 1: make it so unrecognizable that you don't know it.
Speaker 2: So but for you guys, like, were you.
Speaker 1: Guys even aware of kind of sample cultured almost being
Speaker 1: endangered species in the mid to late nineties to the
Speaker 1: point where you know, now a lot of the backdrop
Speaker 1: from America is far from that.
Speaker 2: But were you guys aware of it then or was
Speaker 2: it just you.
Speaker 3: Know, well, I think we were aware that the records
Speaker 3: that were made in that way that that were rare
Speaker 3: and were and you know, to find find them they
Speaker 3: would like sort of these gems that would stick out,
Speaker 3: like if a well made sample based record is just
Speaker 3: like such a beautiful thing and they don't come along
Speaker 3: all the time, you know. But we were we kind
Speaker 3: of thought, no, like, we're a million miles from anywhere,
Speaker 3: no one's ever going to hear this, so well, we
Speaker 3: can just sample anything, and it's we were just.
Speaker 7: Doing ourselves famous last words, I was going to say, it's.
Speaker 1: Funny that he said that all the way in Australia
Speaker 1: because that's also where I was when I decided to
Speaker 1: play Really Love, because I quite I didn't understand.
Speaker 2: It was going everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was on something like local underground
Speaker 1: radio station that the world wouldn't hear of, and then
Speaker 1: that shit happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've kind.
Speaker 6: Of got the same attitude to samples of just like,
Speaker 6: we'll just use it and see.
Speaker 2: What nobody.
Speaker 6: It's you can't tell?
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's let's we're twenty five minutes and let's
Speaker 1: cut to the goddamn chase. How just that's my first
Speaker 1: question is how can you tell us the story of
Speaker 1: Since I Left You?
Speaker 2: And it's hard to explain.
Speaker 1: It's really hard, even when you know that album is
Speaker 1: so perfect to me that even when I explain to
Speaker 1: people who are, you know, just casual music listeners, like,
Speaker 1: they're still not getting the genius that every last thing
Speaker 1: you hear had to be manipulated and edited in a
Speaker 1: way so that it fits melodically structurally. So tell us
Speaker 1: the beginning of how you guys even thought to meet this,
Speaker 1: this this classic album.
Speaker 3: I think we I mean, I let Tony jump in,
Speaker 3: but we were kind of doing gigs in these rock venues.
Speaker 3: We're using samplers and our friend Darren would emc over
Speaker 3: the top and we had some live drums, and as
Speaker 3: we got into the studio more we realized it sounds
Speaker 3: so much cooler if we just remove ourselves from it.
Speaker 3: You'll remove our voices, remove any live drums, and we'll
Speaker 3: do it just with samples. And it was almost like there.
Speaker 6: Was a bad beast I always or something to start
Speaker 6: off with this kind of wrapping that was a little
Speaker 6: bit Doctor Octagon kind of lyrics and a big kind
Speaker 6: of beast, and it was, you know, some cool stuff.
Speaker 6: But then we did, you know, it was like, let's
Speaker 6: just make all the malady samples and use no voice.
Speaker 7: How long was that a process of working on that record?
Speaker 7: How long did it take you out?
Speaker 3: To me, probably like eighteen intense months, but there was
Speaker 3: like maybe three or four years of like collecting samples before.
Speaker 4: Then and finding your way.
Speaker 3: And then it's almost like there's this I mean, there's
Speaker 3: two sides to it. There's the technical side of how
Speaker 3: you actually make it with the samplers or whatever that
Speaker 3: we can talk about, but the other side of like
Speaker 3: how you think, how you know, how you conceive it
Speaker 3: or the feeling behind it is harder to talk about
Speaker 3: it because it's like we just hit this period of
Speaker 3: a beautiful flow and it was really just a love
Speaker 3: for music and discovery. And when I listen to it now,
Speaker 3: that's what I can hear. I can hear like a
Speaker 3: twenty one year old me just so in love with music,
Speaker 3: sampling and discovering strange old records that that I think
Speaker 3: that joy is just still what people can It's infectious.
Speaker 6: You definitely not true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely came through for me. I think.
Speaker 7: You know, at the time when I discovered you guys,
Speaker 7: this was when my.
Speaker 2: Band Little Brother, we had put out our first record.
Speaker 7: Listening and a mirror actually had listed his uh I
Speaker 7: guess the top albums he was listening to at the
Speaker 7: time in uh in Rolling Stone and so he listed
Speaker 7: like like fifty cent Little Brother and then you know,
Speaker 7: the Avalanche since I left you, And I was like,
Speaker 7: all right, if he if they on the same list
Speaker 7: with us, I know I should bang it. So these
Speaker 7: motherfuckers got to have something. So I'm like, so, I'm like,
Speaker 7: that's how you got straight up? Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 7: was how I actually listened to him, like I had
Speaker 7: always seen, but like you said, you know, y'all kind
Speaker 7: of the rock culture and enjoyed, so I just thought
Speaker 7: they were like a rock band. I thought they all
Speaker 7: was kind of like The Strokes or like right, because
Speaker 7: that was around that time, you know, I thought it
Speaker 7: was just that kind of you know, that that rock
Speaker 7: revival shit that was popping at the time. So I
Speaker 7: was like, all right, this is just another rock band.
Speaker 7: But then I heard the album and I hadn't heard anything.
Speaker 7: I just went into it blind. I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 7: let me check it out. And man, that shit blew
Speaker 7: me the fuck away. And the thing about it, like
Speaker 7: up until that point, you know, introducing by DJ Shadow,
Speaker 7: I mean, we grew up on Bombs Squad and like
Speaker 7: Prince Paul and all these guys, Dust Brothers, all those
Speaker 7: guys doing that kind of collage and pay stuff. But
Speaker 7: when I heard Introducing, I was like, oh wow, like
Speaker 7: this is amazing, and it was something that kind of
Speaker 7: took it for me, made it it felt like y'all,
Speaker 7: really it made it more emotional, like that was I
Speaker 7: think maybe the first time sample based music instrumental in
Speaker 7: that way. I was like, man, this is really emotional
Speaker 7: but then that was when I heard introduce it.
Speaker 2: But then when I heard y'all.
Speaker 7: Shit and that damn three two hearts and three four times, bro,
Speaker 7: I played that shit, man. I played the MP three
Speaker 7: tags off that motherfucker.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 7: Listen, I ran the record in the ground man. And
Speaker 7: the thing, you know, when Tony you're talking about just
Speaker 7: kind of that spirit of just you know, the you know,
Speaker 7: that discovery. The thing that I always liked about all
Speaker 7: you guys records is that the way you use the samples,
Speaker 7: it doesn't feel like in kind of just a bastardized way.
Speaker 7: It really makes you want to search what you guys use.
Speaker 7: It makes you more For me, just as a love
Speaker 7: of music, it just made me more curious to know
Speaker 7: more about the stuff you guys use. And like even
Speaker 7: like since I left you. You know, the way it
Speaker 7: starts is, you know, since I left you, but then
Speaker 7: at the end when you bring back the just can't
Speaker 7: get you ever since the day imagine, I was like, Yo,
Speaker 7: that ship is so fucking dope. Yeah, So like how
Speaker 7: do y'all plot all that ship out? And like, I know,
Speaker 7: the simple you say you use it was like the
Speaker 7: s you're using the S nine hundred. Were you tracking
Speaker 7: it on tape? Was it like was it pro tools
Speaker 7: at that time? Like, how were y'all storing all these ideas?
Speaker 3: It was like S nine hundred, and then we got
Speaker 3: a S two thousand, which had more memory kind two thousand.
Speaker 3: We were like, oh, this is this is insane. We're
Speaker 3: going to be able to do anything with this no stuff.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So and by that I think by the time we're
Speaker 3: making since I left you, we had a ZIP.
Speaker 4: Drive for the.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It was literally
Speaker 3: just that and and at a shitty old turntable and
Speaker 3: two dollars junks store records and.
Speaker 4: You know what that limitation is what is beautiful because.
Speaker 2: Then drives the ingenuity.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then we had a there's an op code program
Speaker 3: called studio Vision.
Speaker 4: There was a sequencer.
Speaker 3: I didn't have any audio, but that ran medi into
Speaker 3: the samplers and so that's how we could sequence the samples.
Speaker 4: And it was all done like that.
Speaker 3: And if I came to work again in the morning,
Speaker 3: like there was nothing on tape, no pro tools, so
Speaker 3: I would have to load it all up again and
Speaker 3: to hear what the song sounded like and to remember,
Speaker 3: you know, or if I wanted to burn a demo,
Speaker 3: make a demo, would have to like bounce it, burn
Speaker 3: it onto CD, put it in my CD, walkman and
Speaker 3: go for a walk or something to have a listen
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 4: Where we're at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask, do you have all
Speaker 1: the discs saved from that album? Or was it just
Speaker 1: like once you track it and once it's on tape
Speaker 1: or once it's recorded, then you just unplugged your machine
Speaker 1: and that's it. You don't save the samples. You don't
Speaker 1: any of those things, Like is there a flap? Like
Speaker 1: if I were to ask you, like, could you get
Speaker 1: the either diners from whatever? Yeah, Pablo Cruise, like, could
Speaker 1: you actually get the floppy.
Speaker 3: Disc some of them I've got, I've got some and
Speaker 3: I've got I've kept most of the records when I
Speaker 3: sold my record collection, but I kept all this.
Speaker 4: Since I left you once.
Speaker 3: And we just found the stems recently from because we
Speaker 3: eventually tracked it to an early version of pro tools.
Speaker 4: When we went to like a proper studio, we were like, wow,
Speaker 4: this is like.
Speaker 3: And they had like about four different engineers helping us
Speaker 3: to like get it from this from out the back
Speaker 3: of our samplers onto recording into pro tools and then
Speaker 3: we mixed it from So we've got those stems and
Speaker 3: some of the some of the flopping discs.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what is the what is the accurate number?
Speaker 1: I know that you know sometimes these stories can be exaggerated.
Speaker 1: How many samples do you believe are on that album?
Speaker 4: I've got no idea. I reckon there would be.
Speaker 3: Like I think I figured it out once by working
Speaker 3: out how much the five thousand could store and how
Speaker 3: many samples in a program. And because it was every
Speaker 3: every zip, every song was you know, the sampler memory
Speaker 3: was full. So it was probably like around three thousand
Speaker 3: because all the little drum hits and little bird noises all.
Speaker 7: I won't say, man, when y'all use the part, they
Speaker 7: got me because like I mean, I listened to Recon,
Speaker 7: I was like, hey, there's don't the part why I've
Speaker 7: realized them. I'm like, okay, they know what's up when
Speaker 7: y'all use the ray.
Speaker 2: Kwan yeah exactly.
Speaker 7: I was like yes, I was like yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 7: she was so dope.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So your guests like I've read nine hundred samples, I've
Speaker 1: read four thousand samples. I mean of course, for the
Speaker 1: legend of it, four thousand samples is a way better thing.
Speaker 1: And I believe, you know, I believe anything, but baseball
Speaker 1: guests baseball estimate.
Speaker 3: I think two to three thousand, like like when you
Speaker 3: consider every little bump here and everything, because it was
Speaker 3: it was a lot.
Speaker 1: So Okay, when you're when you guys are at least
Speaker 1: at the let's say the ninety percent mark. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you have fifteen songs down already as you're creating
Speaker 1: this album in your mind, are you like, there's no
Speaker 1: way in hell we can ever clear this or sell
Speaker 1: this to the outside world, Like I mean, at this way,
Speaker 1: is it just a passion project to you?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think, But I think we were just thinking,
Speaker 6: not even of the legality of the whole thing. We
Speaker 6: were just like trying to put together this amazing thing,
Speaker 6: and there it was just kind of a record company.
Speaker 6: You do your thing and just get it out. So
Speaker 6: it was good for us because we didn't have that limitation,
Speaker 6: where whereas now we're you know, we have to be
Speaker 6: more aware of samples we use and you know, clearing
Speaker 6: and all that kind of stuff. But back then it
Speaker 6: was still a little bit of a you know a
Speaker 6: little bit of a more of a free for all.
Speaker 6: I guess we'd just say Robbie.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But also nobody knew who we were, like, yeah, we
Speaker 3: didn't think anyone would ever, you know, it would get
Speaker 3: a wide audience. So in that way, we were free
Speaker 3: to do what, to sample whatever we wanted, you know,
Speaker 3: like we kind of just didn't really like I think
Speaker 3: as we were as it was growing, we knew we
Speaker 3: were very passionate, and we knew that it was this
Speaker 3: beautiful thing, but we certainly didn't expect it to be
Speaker 3: become what it was, So we weren't restrained by thinking that,
Speaker 3: you know, we have a high profile and people are
Speaker 3: going to a lot of people are going to hear
Speaker 3: this record.
Speaker 6: And we've done an EP before that as well and
Speaker 6: didn't clear one sample from that. So it just kind
Speaker 6: of like didn't care to.
Speaker 1: Be nice, all right, So we can't do that anymore.
Speaker 7: Yeah, when I was my ass so when people came
Speaker 7: to about you know, samples and stuff, what was it like?
Speaker 7: Were they like honored? Were they like like fuck you
Speaker 7: pay me?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What was the what was the feeling.
Speaker 4: Like back then?
Speaker 2: It was?
Speaker 4: It was pretty nice.
Speaker 3: I mean some people didn't even know what sampling was,
Speaker 3: or you know, we would track down someone who they'd inherited,
Speaker 3: like their grandfather's catalog, you know in a willis they
Speaker 3: didn't even know they had it, and we would find
Speaker 3: find them and say, hey, you know you own this
Speaker 3: music and so and some people just were like a
Speaker 3: flat out no, like Rogers and Hammerstein and people like that.
Speaker 2: Oh so there are songs that did not make.
Speaker 3: It, samples samples that didn't make it. Yeah, and then
Speaker 3: other people like John Kale, like he was super cool
Speaker 3: because like, ah, that song two Hearts and three four time,
Speaker 3: it was going to work out that like there was
Speaker 3: five main samples and they all wanted twenty percent each,
Speaker 3: so we were going to get nothing. And John Klee
Speaker 3: was like, no, no, we the sample owners should all
Speaker 3: take a little bit less. So the dudes that made
Speaker 3: the song can get a little bit too.
Speaker 4: And so that what's up.
Speaker 2: That never happens that never.
Speaker 6: It's probably never happened again, never happened again.
Speaker 1: You represent us, please, this never ever happens in real life.
Speaker 6: This is being unknown in Australia.
Speaker 1: I mean I got people like come after me for
Speaker 1: like a snare drum yeah, let alone and want like
Speaker 1: seventy percent of it.
Speaker 2: That's a snare drum. Yeah, okay. So when you're this,
Speaker 2: this was on double Excel recordings.
Speaker 4: Correct Excel in UK, Yeah, double Excel.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry forgive me Excel recordings.
Speaker 1: So when you played the final product to your company,
Speaker 1: how long did it take for them to even start
Speaker 1: the process to clear this? Because again like I yeah, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: usually okay. So the obstacles that I run into are okay,
Speaker 1: say I create a song and uh okay, I have
Speaker 1: this situation once where I used Hey Bulldog by the
Speaker 1: Beatles and they wanted like one of the publishing which
Speaker 1: then left no space for like the others I sample.
Speaker 1: And I've learned, I've learned, at least in the last
Speaker 1: ten years, that relationships are key to making these things happen.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes lawyers and red tape lawyers and administrative people
Speaker 1: are kind of the the demons of the situation. And
Speaker 1: half the time, if you can get to the actual
Speaker 1: artists themselves, then you can you know, sort of iron
Speaker 1: out and make it smooth. So again, how we had this.
Speaker 6: We had this amazing lady called Pat Shanahan, who I mean,
Speaker 6: she would have been in her sixties or seventies. She
Speaker 6: just passed away recently. So she would clear all samples
Speaker 6: for us, and she'd done like Beastie Boys records and
Speaker 6: iced Tea and all stuff like that. So she used
Speaker 6: to work at Ireland Records for many years and had
Speaker 6: a lot of contacts just through the whole industry. So
Speaker 6: when we were clear in his samples, she she would
Speaker 6: be like, Hey, I know him. I used to work
Speaker 6: with him here, I noticed. So she had a lot
Speaker 6: of personal relationships with Relis. Yeah. So so that helped
Speaker 6: us so much, and she would just be able to
Speaker 6: get things over the line for us that that, you know,
Speaker 6: if it was a lawyer or anything or anyone else
Speaker 6: like that, it just wouldn't have happened. So well, I mean,
Speaker 6: we're so lucky to have her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Record one one lady, And Yeah, she became a
Speaker 3: dear friend actually, Jally Patch. She was just the most
Speaker 3: most lovely lady. And I think she she worked with
Speaker 3: who did she work out before Island? I can't remember,
Speaker 3: but she sort of knew everybody in the industry since
Speaker 3: like the sixties, had seen that there was a niche
Speaker 3: for someone who just specifically cleared samples, and so I
Speaker 3: think she left the record label. And then the first
Speaker 3: record she cleared was like the Tone Low Record or
Speaker 3: something like that. And then and then she did Back
Speaker 3: and the Beastie Boys, and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so she helped us a lot.
Speaker 3: And then there were other personal relationships that Richard Russell
Speaker 3: at Excel.
Speaker 4: Helped us clear. The Madonna sample, uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah that that was to be when even when
Speaker 1: I heard it in the car. Now my story of
Speaker 1: hearing it. I heard that album on my birthday. I
Speaker 1: was doing a DJ gig in Indiana and I was
Speaker 1: born in January, so it was like cold, and the
Speaker 1: guy that picked me up from an airport played it,
Speaker 1: and you know, because the album runs, uh sort of
Speaker 1: as a continuous flow, like it doesn't go from song
Speaker 1: to song, I just thought he was you know, normally
Speaker 1: when the guy picks me up from the airport, they're
Speaker 1: always like sneaking there trying to.
Speaker 2: Sop yeah no, no, no.
Speaker 1: From like from the from the airport to my hotel room,
Speaker 1: I was under the press. He was playing me his shit,
Speaker 1: and that's just that had me wide open. And then
Speaker 1: like finally he gave me the bad news. Twenty minutes
Speaker 1: into it like oh no, no, no, this is some
Speaker 1: cats from Australia called the Avalanches. I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I thought it was your shit, all right, never mind,
Speaker 1: all right, right, but what will wound up happened?
Speaker 2: I asked him? Can I borrow the CDs? I could
Speaker 2: hear it?
Speaker 1: And like, actually the same story with little Brother when
Speaker 1: I heard Fonte's thing, like, I rarely have dedicated so
Speaker 1: much hours, so so many, like a lot of hours
Speaker 1: just to listen to product over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: And I just I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: Well, because you guys worked on and what you said
Speaker 1: earlier about how limitation studio limitations makes you more creative,
Speaker 1: that makes sense because a lot of my favorite guys
Speaker 1: like use you know, with with Fonte's group, what did
Speaker 1: you got do?
Speaker 2: Everything on fruity loops?
Speaker 7: Everything was fruity loops and a compact had We had
Speaker 7: a compact computer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was.
Speaker 1: You know, I let it pro that was what we
Speaker 1: recorded A vocals and cool litter or Sony acid like
Speaker 1: something real primitive. So what I want to know is
Speaker 1: how do you how do you bend samples to your
Speaker 1: will melodically? Especially back then, without you know, the aid
Speaker 1: of a MacBook pro to instantly you know you could
Speaker 1: do that, yeah, yeah, seconds, But how were you able
Speaker 1: to bend these samples to your will so that they
Speaker 1: melodically fit the song?
Speaker 2: And with with that primitive equipment?
Speaker 3: How I think it comes back to what you're saying
Speaker 3: about just how limitations can be really powerful, because it
Speaker 3: was just like I just remember going, this is this
Speaker 3: act like sampler. I'm just going to get really fucking
Speaker 3: good at this one thing, and that's all I'm going
Speaker 3: to do, you know, And so once it just becomes
Speaker 3: almost invisible, so you're not even thinking about how to
Speaker 3: use it. You know it so well, and so it
Speaker 3: was just just literally tuning samples in the sampler. So
Speaker 3: you know, you might have stuck with a drum bead
Speaker 3: and kind of a beginning sample, and the beginning sample
Speaker 3: just kind of gets you going it might not even
Speaker 3: be there at the end. But then it's just literally
Speaker 3: getting samples in tune and whole bunch of samples just
Speaker 3: on the midikeyboard that are living in the sampler's memory
Speaker 3: and and playing around and then going, oh, that might
Speaker 3: be a verse, that might be a chorus. I've kind
Speaker 3: of stuck. Save it, put it away, maybe give it
Speaker 3: to Tony. He'll see if he can find a sample
Speaker 3: for it. And slowly and slowly the layers built up.
Speaker 3: So it's just using your ear tuning samples by ear.
Speaker 2: So that is not easy to do.
Speaker 7: People, that is that is that is not easy to do.
Speaker 2: Which leads to my next question.
Speaker 1: So when I asked the bomb squad how they created
Speaker 1: nation of millions, I guess Keith Shockley explained to me
Speaker 1: that basically the process that they were doing, they would
Speaker 1: have jam sessions. So the way that the engineer was
Speaker 1: set up was Eric Sadler had his sampler on his
Speaker 1: side of the room, Keith Shockley was probably on turntable
Speaker 1: doing his stuff, and then Hank would have his bit
Speaker 1: and they would start with a drum beat and when
Speaker 1: they were satisfied. Their theory was that if you took
Speaker 1: everything away, like are the drums banging enough? Like the
Speaker 1: drums have to be perfect. Once the drums are there,
Speaker 1: then each chef would add their particular ingredient into the
Speaker 1: musical stew until it felt complete and felt right. So
Speaker 1: how do you guys source or like what's the back
Speaker 1: and forth or the work process to adding things like
Speaker 1: you know, whose idea was it, like oh I got
Speaker 1: this horse noise over here? Or even or even with
Speaker 1: even with the first song on Wildflower where the kid
Speaker 1: is talking, I don't know if that's a SoundBite and
Speaker 1: you guys manipulated his voice to go right in key
Speaker 1: with that intro. But you know, even with the Wildflower intro,
Speaker 1: like how do you guys, how do you guys communicate
Speaker 1: back and forth like what gets inside the.
Speaker 2: Meal?
Speaker 1: And also subsequently, how do you tell each other that
Speaker 1: doesn't work? Like Okay, I don't know if that fits
Speaker 1: or whatever, or is it just like whatever works thrown.
Speaker 6: In I think, I mean definitely. Robbie is the great
Speaker 6: producer of the records. And it's almost like where, you know,
Speaker 6: we used to have all the other members in the
Speaker 6: band and we you know, have a little sample, you know, loops,
Speaker 6: a couple of things that go together or something like that,
Speaker 6: but then kind of give him over to him where
Speaker 6: he's putting it all together and you know, chopping up everything,
Speaker 6: and I mean it's just what he's amazing and he's
Speaker 6: just doing all the layers and incredible production work, and
Speaker 6: you know, the horse noises and all that kind.
Speaker 2: I was just like, the hell.
Speaker 4: Because no no I heard.
Speaker 3: I was like, it was like DJ Munks and Cypress
Speaker 3: Hill and you know that squeal noise he had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I had to try and.
Speaker 4: Make a noise like that.
Speaker 3: And then I was watching an old Western movie and
Speaker 3: there was this horse.
Speaker 4: I was like, that might work.
Speaker 5: So how did you get the horse to clear the sample?
Speaker 6: The horse to this day still doesn't know that he's
Speaker 6: on the record.
Speaker 2: Well, not just with music. Uh, how did you guys
Speaker 2: even know?
Speaker 1: Because because movie soundbites are also a big part of the.
Speaker 2: Kind of the structure.
Speaker 1: Here, how how did you guys even source or even
Speaker 1: figure out clearing all of the non musical elements of
Speaker 1: the song that had to be clear? Like I'm certain
Speaker 1: that with movie dialogue? Or was it just like the
Speaker 1: Wild West? Like if they come to you, then you
Speaker 1: admit it? Or never mind, this is.
Speaker 7: Yourself? I think never mind. I got my answer. This
Speaker 7: is this is quest love supreme, not d.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 6: I never compare me to would you like would you
Speaker 6: like our answer? All the record label answer?
Speaker 2: Never mind?
Speaker 7: I just never mind, forget it. One thing I was
Speaker 7: I was curious to know for two things. One just
Speaker 7: the making of a Wildflower, because you know, we've read
Speaker 7: a lot and if you guys have talked a lot
Speaker 7: about to make it since I left you, Wildflower was
Speaker 7: like other Thandiangelo's Black Messiah, that was those were neck
Speaker 7: and that those were like my two most anticipated records
Speaker 7: of that decade.
Speaker 2: Just as long, yeah, just as long.
Speaker 7: And and I remember it, you know, I We've been
Speaker 7: hearing about it for a while and I was like
Speaker 7: it dropped and I was like, holy shit, this is
Speaker 7: really here. And you know, it was really inspiring me
Speaker 7: because it sounded like you guys picked up like right
Speaker 7: where you left off. It didn't even you could listen
Speaker 7: to since I left Your Wildflower back to back and
Speaker 7: aside from the cameos, you know, you would sound like
Speaker 7: they were done at the same time. So I was
Speaker 7: curious to know just you know, working on that record
Speaker 7: and you know.
Speaker 2: What took so long?
Speaker 7: A what took so long? From uh since I left
Speaker 7: you the Wildflower? And two, uh, the you guys picking
Speaker 7: your mcs, because you really picked you know guys that
Speaker 7: weren't you know, you know, Danny Brown and Camplow and
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, Like you guys worked with
Speaker 7: some kind of unorthodox people, So how do y'all go
Speaker 7: about choosing that?
Speaker 4: That? I mean Camplow?
Speaker 3: That first Camplow Saturday Night was like a favorite record.
Speaker 3: We would just play that NonStop, and some great sampling
Speaker 3: in that record too, So we actually sampled Camplow on
Speaker 3: Since I Left You, So it was really nice to
Speaker 3: kind of go full circle and then work with that.
Speaker 6: Whenever we played live, we'd always have a bit where
Speaker 6: Luccini would coming after a song, so massive Camblo fans.
Speaker 1: That Before you answer Fante's question, how how did you guys?
Speaker 1: How did you guys deliver the album live?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: How does that even happen?
Speaker 1: Or what's thet Like I only saw you guys when
Speaker 1: you guys finally came to the Tonight show for the
Speaker 1: Wildflower album. That's the first time I got to see you,
Speaker 1: like actually perform. But when you're when you made Since
Speaker 1: I Left You, then how do you decide how to
Speaker 1: deliver this in concert?
Speaker 3: We still when we were touring Since I Left You,
Speaker 3: we were still like in live band mode because that's
Speaker 3: we still had that element from you know, when we
Speaker 3: were starting out, So we would sort of do like
Speaker 3: kind of like there's like a big party with live
Speaker 3: drums and kind of like I don't know.
Speaker 6: Space guitars. Key yeah, but most of everything was just
Speaker 6: like on a on a mini keyboard and we'd have
Speaker 6: the samples would just be that key chorus break horse.
Speaker 6: So I was just triggering live and then the drama
Speaker 6: playing along to it. So there's no like you know,
Speaker 6: time code or anything into a computer or anything like
Speaker 6: that when we did to it Since I Left You,
Speaker 6: So it was still pretty organic in that way.
Speaker 7: One of the guys in your band man hold, I'm
Speaker 7: a big fan of Johnty. How did y'all how Joko?
Speaker 7: And what's his role in you guys band?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was part of our touring group for around
Speaker 3: the Wildflower era.
Speaker 4: We came and did.
Speaker 3: Costello and we I think we heard his first EP
Speaker 3: and it was really cool, and then he did some
Speaker 3: vocals on Wildflower and then we're like, come come on
Speaker 3: the road.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so.
Speaker 6: He also he also did a it was Since I
Speaker 6: Left You. He put a band together of about fifteen
Speaker 6: musicians and played Since I Left You front to back
Speaker 6: really and did it live around Australia and we were like, oh,
Speaker 6: let's let's go check this out. And it was kind
Speaker 6: of like really weird to just be you know, played yeah,
Speaker 6: and we didn't played so well, and we're just like, hey,
Speaker 6: we should get back on the running like this. So
Speaker 6: it was really it was really cool to see and
Speaker 6: from now, I mean, you know, we developed a relationship.
Speaker 7: No, he's really dope. I'm a big yeah. But what's
Speaker 7: the gap between the first album and Wildflower? You know
Speaker 7: that eighteen years sixteen years old?
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 1: I got admit I thought they threw you guys under
Speaker 1: the jail. I really admitt I was they got thrown
Speaker 1: under the jail. You don't got our money? Fuck it?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I mean there's many ways to answer
Speaker 3: that question, but the short answer is like was like,
Speaker 3: you know, you make since I left you with no money,
Speaker 3: no equipment, you have a success, You get an advance
Speaker 3: to make your second record, you buy all this equipment,
Speaker 3: and then but it doesn't flow and it doesn't happen
Speaker 3: sitting there sitting around with compressors all day and like
Speaker 3: outboard gear, and we had none of that before. And
Speaker 3: it took a long time to get back to that
Speaker 3: point of realizing it's not about that. It's just about
Speaker 3: your imagination a turntable and a sampler and you can
Speaker 3: add all that it later in the studio. But it
Speaker 3: was like, you've got to write the songs, the beautiful
Speaker 3: songs first, you know, and all the gear help you.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we were young and we had to
Speaker 4: learn that ourselves.
Speaker 3: And now we're back to like I don't have the
Speaker 3: studio in my house anymore, Like I just back to
Speaker 3: the same sympatic I started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you purposely wanted to go back to square one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it took us sixteen years to realize that. But eventually,
Speaker 6: and the thing is like, like in all honesty, as
Speaker 6: as the time went on, kind of since I left,
Speaker 6: you started to growing stature. So we were a lot
Speaker 6: of pressure started to build. And then that pressure, you know,
Speaker 6: came a little bit from the record company, just from
Speaker 6: fans in general and everything when's it's going to happen,
Speaker 6: And that got to us a lot as well, I
Speaker 6: think as it went along, and you know, and then
Speaker 6: like Robbie said, we kind of just got back to
Speaker 6: the essence of what it was all about, and almost
Speaker 6: just in our own personal journeys kind of declined our
Speaker 6: minds and stocked with all the pressure within ourselves and
Speaker 6: just let go of all that that goal of all
Speaker 6: the equipment, and from that point like it didn't take
Speaker 6: that long at all to finish.
Speaker 5: I'm just curious, what, So, what equipment did you use
Speaker 5: for a wildflower and the new one specifically the same?
Speaker 6: No, we use pro Tools for this one. We were
Speaker 6: using Vision for since I left it, which that program
Speaker 6: actually they stopped making it in nineteen ninety seven, and
Speaker 6: Robbie was still using that up to two thousand and six.
Speaker 2: It ain't broke.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to learn how to
Speaker 1: master updated equipment or were you just stubborn, like I'll
Speaker 1: never it's this or nothing.
Speaker 4: I was stubborn for a long time.
Speaker 3: But now I'm just like pro Tools and I just
Speaker 3: edit in pro Tools and it's just like second nature
Speaker 3: to me again. So it's just like it's just like
Speaker 3: a tape recorder and it reminds me of like when
Speaker 3: I was like fifteen and learn me how to make
Speaker 3: tape loots and stuff. You know, it's like as long
Speaker 3: as long as I keep it simple, you know.
Speaker 5: It's what's the what's what are the pros?
Speaker 2: And constant.
Speaker 5: You know, when pro tools, you're now able to see
Speaker 5: your music and your samples, and back in the day
Speaker 5: you couldn't. So what are the advantages and disadvantages to that,
Speaker 5: if any.
Speaker 4: That's an amazing question because you're so right.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can't see the waveforms when the sampler,
Speaker 3: you know, you don't see you're just listening and you're
Speaker 3: kind of like looking at.
Speaker 4: The window almost, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's just a feeling thing, and it has been
Speaker 3: a big change because you know, pro tools can grit
Speaker 3: everything so easily, and everything can get tight, and like
Speaker 3: you can make so many different versions of the one song,
Speaker 3: and it's almost like you can again get too out
Speaker 3: of control with limitlessness of things like pro tools, and
Speaker 3: even just going back to Wildflower, the way you know,
Speaker 3: we used to sample, to just just pick up a record,
Speaker 3: put it on, find a sample from a you know,
Speaker 3: pretty simple like that. But but during Wildflower, we just
Speaker 3: for some reason we'd go, Okay.
Speaker 6: Let's just collect samples. So we just collect samples without
Speaker 6: like thousands and categorize them without even really making songs.
Speaker 6: We're just like, we'll do that later. So it almost
Speaker 6: became like this story and administration process of making music.
Speaker 6: So so that just that the limitlessness of that is like.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was gonna ask just in the sixteen years
Speaker 7: you know between those records, were your what would you
Speaker 7: guys mean source of income? Like how was ill able
Speaker 7: to stay going for that long?
Speaker 3: It was a struggle, you know, and it's certainly not
Speaker 3: not what people think. It's like, you know, being in
Speaker 3: a band and like, for example, the song since I
Speaker 3: like talking about sample clearance, like the song since I
Speaker 3: Left You is like I don't own any of it,
Speaker 3: you know, it's all owned by samples. So we don't
Speaker 3: get really royalties to live off. So it was tough,
Speaker 3: and we would get offers to do some big shows
Speaker 3: in that time, but we kind of thought, you know,
Speaker 3: if it gets to like twenty ten and we haven't
Speaker 3: put a new record out, we can't.
Speaker 4: We don't really want to go and do a show
Speaker 4: because it just seems like we're in all.
Speaker 3: These yeah, I mean, you know, max credit credit cards.
Speaker 1: Well, were you guys did you ever consider like just
Speaker 1: going back to your roots and DJing, like just doing
Speaker 1: DJ sets as a duo, but without the pressure of
Speaker 1: here's our new album.
Speaker 2: That sort of thing.
Speaker 6: We did that a few times and that was able
Speaker 6: to to Warness some income. We did like a couple
Speaker 6: of songs for a musical. It was King Kong Music
Speaker 6: Hall that was here in Melbourne, so that kind of
Speaker 6: helps it. And we did have a lot of help
Speaker 6: from the record company who had just signed to So
Speaker 6: it was like an independent record company who had just
Speaker 6: like being half yeah, half brought out by Universal which
Speaker 6: has a lot of money. So you know, our man
Speaker 6: Steve pad would really help us out by constantly asking
Speaker 6: them if we can have a little bit more, and
Speaker 6: it's just around the corner, you know, six months away,
Speaker 6: six months later, it'd be the same thing.
Speaker 7: So Forness, he was wonderful.
Speaker 6: He was really good.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to know, Okay, so I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: probably closer to Robbie's theory on kind of staying intentionally
Speaker 1: ignorant to technology so that it doesn't destroy me, you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: That's my excuse, Like I don't want to learn all
Speaker 1: this technology because then I'll lose what I had in
Speaker 1: my magic period, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But I have to know.
Speaker 1: So when I first saw the demonstration of I hope
Speaker 1: I'm saying this right, And I prefaced all that to say, like,
Speaker 1: I really don't know the technical terms, but with the
Speaker 1: program melodim, that enables you to sort of like erase
Speaker 1: the DNA of a song, like if I could take
Speaker 1: a Stevie Wonder song and erase his vocals out of
Speaker 1: it and make it just an instrumental that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: When I first saw that, I saw that at Jazzy
Speaker 1: Jeff's house, and the first thing I said to him was, yo, like,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what happens when the avalanches
Speaker 1: get a hold of this machine.
Speaker 2: Where they can now really manipulate and bend.
Speaker 7: Sounds to the you know, or like y'all, or like Ableton,
Speaker 7: like the avalanches were Ableton.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's fucking scary exactly.
Speaker 1: So like, have you guys even created songs to that level?
Speaker 2: Like it's weird.
Speaker 1: I don't know if someone has fully taken advantage of
Speaker 1: like it's to me, it seems so grandiose and so
Speaker 1: attimidating that I haven't even I think maybe once last
Speaker 1: year I decided, like, all right, let me let me
Speaker 1: take the Fender Rhodes from this particular song that I
Speaker 1: don't have the stems to and see if I can
Speaker 1: build a song from that. But besides that one moment,
Speaker 1: like I kind of thought it was going to be
Speaker 1: just a flood of kind of a return or at
Speaker 1: least a part two of the sample. Wow Wow West,
Speaker 1: that was you know, eighty six to ninety two, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But what this sort of sampling have
Speaker 1: you guys ever been? Have you guys even decided or
Speaker 1: considered that level of sampling where you start erasing the
Speaker 1: DNA of samples that exist to create new material. I
Speaker 1: hope I asked that question right.
Speaker 6: Yep, totally, Okay, totally. It feels like it's a strange crime.
Speaker 1: I also feel like it's a concept a crime, so
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: I feel every time I use it.
Speaker 1: I asked someone last week to like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: astract some vocals from a song, and even then I
Speaker 1: felt guilty.
Speaker 2: So my heart was into making it.
Speaker 1: You know, No, it's it's it's it'll because it'll start
Speaker 1: off innocent now with just music, but then who knows,
Speaker 1: like what they'll use it for thirty years from now.
Speaker 2: With identity thefts.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm kind of scared of jumping in
Speaker 1: that pool because I feel like this is the beginning
Speaker 1: of the danger period. But what is your relationship with
Speaker 1: that level of technology and sampling.
Speaker 6: I don't think we thought about it too much. I
Speaker 6: know we bought Maladine maybe three years ago and I
Speaker 6: personally haven't used it once. We were like, yeah, it's
Speaker 6: going to be great. I kind of looked at it
Speaker 6: right now not now, but but I don't know, I
Speaker 6: feel like that's kind of, in a way, dishonoring the
Speaker 6: sample and the and the people who played on it,
Speaker 6: and and I don't know, maybe that's if that's just
Speaker 6: kind of an old fashioned attitude, and then the future
Speaker 6: is just going to be like taking out you know, Stevy,
Speaker 6: there was.
Speaker 1: Never that one song you man, if I could just
Speaker 1: give her the vocals.
Speaker 6: On that, Yeah, we try and do that with filters,
Speaker 6: but who knows what the future holds are. I don't
Speaker 6: know how Robbie thinks about that, but I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, Like I think some cool stuff like you
Speaker 3: mentioned able to and stuff like being able to stretch
Speaker 3: a sample, like a really really really far way further
Speaker 3: than we have could, Like we've done some of that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. But I also love you know, the
Speaker 3: art form of like like say, the vocal sample for
Speaker 3: Since I Left You has got music underneath. We just
Speaker 3: had to filter it and then I had to chop
Speaker 3: it very finely, but you can still hear all these
Speaker 3: little bells and stuff, and it all adds to the
Speaker 3: sort of magic, even though yeah, auto tune and stuff.
Speaker 3: It's like it's kind of it's kind of beautiful that
Speaker 3: way too.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I think things would get quite clean and really like
Speaker 3: pristine sounding if you can like forensically remove elements, but
Speaker 3: I don't know if it would still.
Speaker 4: Have the magic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it takeaway like the layers that you don't necessarily
Speaker 6: hear but you feel. And then if you do take
Speaker 6: them away, you're like, hey, something's missing here, but I
Speaker 6: can't tell what it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's the thing with like sample beast music. It's
Speaker 7: just so like even when like trying to replace stuff
Speaker 7: or you know, and it's just like, dude, when you
Speaker 7: sample something, you're not just sampling that song. You're sampling
Speaker 7: that day. You're sampling the engineer, you're sampling the outboard gear.
Speaker 7: You know, there's so many things that made it what
Speaker 7: it was. And when you start manipulating that a lot
Speaker 7: of times you can't kind of get too.
Speaker 2: Far away from home to where you lose the magic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's like a spirit spirit in the music.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Yeah, engineers should get paid for samples.
Speaker 2: Shut up, Steve. Yeah, that's real wrap.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna start at a petition.
Speaker 2: On the Sugar Network.
Speaker 1: Hey, oh, another question that I have. I have a theory,
Speaker 1: but I want to see if I'm correct. What was
Speaker 1: the What was the inspiration for the Wildflower album cover?
Speaker 4: It was that slashed down cover.
Speaker 2: I knew it. Yeah, when I first.
Speaker 1: When when literally when I first saw it, I was
Speaker 1: like wow, like and then all alternative world where Sly
Speaker 1: was was happy with his life and everything was going swimmingly.
Speaker 1: This would have been the album covered too. There's a
Speaker 1: ride going on yeah and always Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, we actually got it founder World Quilting Champion, who
Speaker 3: she lives in Nebraska, and she quilted that cover for us,
Speaker 3: and we just took a photo of it, so we
Speaker 3: wanted it to look real like the Sly cover.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 6: So that's an actual made Yeah, that's a quilt.
Speaker 1: Whoa ship? No, I thought it was animated. You said,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you're right. I'm looking at it right now.
Speaker 7: Who yeah, who got it?
Speaker 6: He still sleeps with it on his bed.
Speaker 2: You do. Congratulations, Robbie, there for it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, man, I wanted to ask y'all on the on
Speaker 7: the new record, Man, bruh, where did y'all find shrindav Yo?
Speaker 2: For real?
Speaker 7: I mean Sonanda, Sonanda Montreal, that's you know what. It's
Speaker 7: been going back for the past few years. But yeah,
Speaker 7: I was so happy.
Speaker 3: I can't remember how we got in touch, but we
Speaker 3: had this song and Tony and myself and I collaborate
Speaker 3: on this record and he it was like this beautiful
Speaker 3: piece of music. We had this fashy Bunian vocal and
Speaker 3: it was honestly not going to make the record because
Speaker 3: it was like there's just no voice that can that
Speaker 3: can fit.
Speaker 4: And I can't remember.
Speaker 3: One day it was Tony and myself we just had
Speaker 3: this idea and we were like, we wonder if we
Speaker 3: could ever get in touch with him, or if he
Speaker 3: would know who we are. And somebody got in touch
Speaker 3: with Sernanda and it's been honestly the most incredible, one
Speaker 3: of the most beautiful experiences in my life.
Speaker 4: He's warmer.
Speaker 2: Answer. I didn't know he is.
Speaker 3: Incredible, so open hearted and just so generous with his time.
Speaker 3: That's probably the most beautiful thing that, like people just
Speaker 3: don't dial in a vocal and here you go. It's
Speaker 3: like so generous with their time to go back and
Speaker 3: forth and really get something that feels like it was
Speaker 3: meant to be there.
Speaker 7: You know, his emails to track that together, y'all tracked
Speaker 7: that together? Or was he tracked it on his.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he tracked it on his side, But there were
Speaker 6: a lot of back and forth with emails and stuff,
Speaker 6: and his emails are an absolute joy to read. It's
Speaker 6: it is. He's so eccentric but smart and expressive in
Speaker 6: his emails and he's just like Robbie, go, we couldn't
Speaker 6: you email from Sernandra and go send it? I want
Speaker 6: to read it. It's like a it was so amazing
Speaker 6: to read.
Speaker 8: And then poetry, really real poetry, and just listening to
Speaker 8: his voice, it's like it is one of the great
Speaker 8: voices in my opinion of all times.
Speaker 6: He's still incredible, like that song and I still just go,
Speaker 6: what a vocal performance. It's incredible, incredible.
Speaker 7: So on the other side, I guess maybe the polar
Speaker 7: opposite tricky, what was that like.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 7: I love him, man, I love it.
Speaker 3: Actually, actually we should have mentioned when we're talking about
Speaker 3: nineties sample music too, like his first record.
Speaker 7: Massive Attack, Oh yeah Max and Kay Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, and so that that was stuff that was
Speaker 3: filtering through to us from England at the time too,
Speaker 3: So it was like he was one of our heroes,
Speaker 3: you know, and the Massive Attack records, and he was
Speaker 3: in Berlin making a record.
Speaker 4: He just put that record out last year.
Speaker 3: It's a really great record, and he was just like,
Speaker 3: I happen to be in the studio right now, what
Speaker 3: have you got? And we would just send him a song.
Speaker 3: The first song the next morning came back with full
Speaker 3: lyrics and then he was like that was great, send
Speaker 3: me another one. And we ended up that went on
Speaker 3: for like two weeks. We did like eight songs together.
Speaker 3: And then we got like a message from his management
Speaker 3: to our management, who didn't know anything about this, and
Speaker 3: they were like, are you guys recording together? What you've
Speaker 3: made half a record? What's going on? Like a paperwork something,
Speaker 3: But yeah, that was he was like just he was
Speaker 3: on a hot streak making that record, so he was
Speaker 3: like anything you can send me, I'm on fire.
Speaker 4: At the moment, and it is.
Speaker 6: So good when it's when it's just the artist to
Speaker 6: artists as well, and it's not going through so you
Speaker 6: know that the management obviously didn't know what was happening
Speaker 6: or whatever, and we were just doing our own thing
Speaker 6: without all that, and it's that's, you know, such a
Speaker 6: rewarding relationship for us to kind of, you know, have
Speaker 6: that situation with people we grew up listening to and
Speaker 6: our heroes and everything. And I think you get it
Speaker 6: just so much of a more pure product when it's
Speaker 6: not you know, through their people, through their people and
Speaker 6: all that stuff.
Speaker 7: Yeah, like you guys, the people y'all picked. Man, you know,
Speaker 7: I can't front like it is pretty much. I mean
Speaker 7: it's like a dream, you know, just just me being
Speaker 7: just the music nerd. I am like the people you
Speaker 7: get on every record. I'm like, yo, like that was
Speaker 7: perfect fit. And when I saw it was, you know,
Speaker 7: Terrence Trimp Darby was on this one and then Tricky.
Speaker 2: But when I saw that y'all got fucking Cornelius.
Speaker 7: I was like, yo, dude, like, yeah, they've been in
Speaker 7: my iTunes or some ship, like you almost know, Like
Speaker 7: what was I'm like, dude, they picking all my guys.
Speaker 2: What was he like? Man? What was it? What was
Speaker 2: it like working with him?
Speaker 3: But I don't I don't know what to say about Keg. Really,
Speaker 3: he's like he's a dear friend. And we met him
Speaker 3: like in two thousand and one or something because he.
Speaker 4: Put on that album Fantasma Asthma.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we were making since I left you listening
Speaker 3: to that album.
Speaker 2: Just this is my check.
Speaker 7: That was my ship.
Speaker 4: My check exactly. But it's kind of like.
Speaker 7: Disney one two three four, five, one two four or
Speaker 7: five exactly.
Speaker 3: Yes, because Tokyo is only like same time zoners here
Speaker 3: in ten hours, we go a lot to DJ and
Speaker 3: so we've become friends over the years and he'll always
Speaker 3: show us like record stores and Everything's this sweetest guy.
Speaker 3: And then he just happened to be in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: doing a show when we were there recording, so that
Speaker 3: song just came about, like and it was.
Speaker 6: Robby's birthday at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, recording with him with a happy birthday.
Speaker 6: The recording with him was so incredible the process because
Speaker 6: we kind of had the beat just going and he
Speaker 6: just had a guitar there and he'd be like, all right,
Speaker 6: let's do some takes and just you know, it just
Speaker 6: all around, and so we'd sit there and go the
Speaker 6: comp the COUMP. Then the next take they were just
Speaker 6: all started layering up that you got that. We're all
Speaker 6: like okay, okay, and then towards the end everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 6: we understand now. So he had this whole thing and
Speaker 6: he said it was like twelve layers of different guitar
Speaker 6: tracks that he was just like making and its just.
Speaker 7: That's him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's so incredible to watch.
Speaker 7: It was fantasma like fantasma like fantasma like that fucked
Speaker 7: me up when I heard it. And then the one
Speaker 7: that like when I think it was after I graduated
Speaker 7: college when he came with point like I played, I
Speaker 7: still play that record, like, you know, I love that album.
Speaker 2: Man, he's a nut. I love can I ask what
Speaker 2: was it like working with Johnny.
Speaker 3: Moyer that that was another one that was done remotely,
Speaker 3: but I still remember the morning actually that you didn't get.
Speaker 2: The nerd out on any Smith's questions.
Speaker 3: Or oh my goodness, I think we would have overwhelmed him.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, when he when he came to sitting
Speaker 1: with us, like I think we I that's probably the
Speaker 1: only time that we really nerded out on like tell
Speaker 1: us more stories, you know, that's what.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but we actually met we we saw him even
Speaker 6: before we approached him to play on the track. We
Speaker 6: were like he was at the next table at us
Speaker 6: at Fuji Rock Festival, like just backstage, and we'll both
Speaker 6: just go go up to him and ask him, no,
Speaker 6: you go on, come on, say something, meet him. For
Speaker 6: about fifteen minutes, we're trying to pick each other up
Speaker 6: to go off to him and in the end room
Speaker 6: just like we can't do it. But you know, we
Speaker 6: got to come back direntually and he was he was
Speaker 6: really great, and he actually sent us a message after
Speaker 6: the Divine Call, which is the song he's on it,
Speaker 6: it kind of got some play in England and he's like,
Speaker 6: thanks guys, my kids think I'm cool again. Now.
Speaker 1: Hey, have you guys even considered at thought about releasing
Speaker 1: like all instrumental versions of the last two records, no,
Speaker 1: just for the Avalanche Purists or whatever, like just to
Speaker 1: hear it, because sometimes I you know, I know that
Speaker 1: you guys are going through a progression and you're the
Speaker 1: the you know, the metamorphosis of the group sort of blooming.
Speaker 1: But so there's no just there's not an instrumental mixed
Speaker 1: version of of of any of any of this stuff
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 4: Not no, but we have them.
Speaker 6: We have them. Yeah, I think we can. We can.
Speaker 2: That's really what I want to ask.
Speaker 6: Interviews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just want to see the now will
Speaker 1: you do you do you guys ever think that you'll
Speaker 1: try to do another all instrumental project as far as
Speaker 1: I know, you're probably working on something now and just yeah.
Speaker 4: We're starting another now?
Speaker 3: I think yeah, because it's just like, I mean, working
Speaker 3: with vocalists like that for us is almost like it's
Speaker 3: still you know, an active curation and almost sampling in
Speaker 3: a way. But I feel like we're we're we're making
Speaker 3: a slight back towards just to sample records.
Speaker 7: Well whatever, whatever the next record is. I'm putting my
Speaker 7: bed in. I won't end on that motherfucker. So hey, listen, man,
Speaker 7: just talking.
Speaker 6: Yeah, whatever, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Man. I'm dude.
Speaker 1: I almost feel like this is this is probably the
Speaker 1: least that I've I've inserted questions in an interview only
Speaker 1: because I feel like every question that I want to
Speaker 1: know the answer to is almost like inconsequential, like just
Speaker 1: okay that particular snare that you use on this song
Speaker 1: versus the problem.
Speaker 2: Wait, I do I do want to know who?
Speaker 1: Who uh decides the concept for your videos man, especially
Speaker 1: with Frankie Sinatra, Like well just all your videos, all
Speaker 1: your videos are just some next level ship Like who
Speaker 1: comes with those concepts?
Speaker 6: It's mainly the the video people. So we get we
Speaker 6: get pitched some things and then we kind of, I
Speaker 6: guess just pick the craziest one. Really yeah, but yeah
Speaker 6: it was Frankie Sinatra. I hope this doesn't sound bad,
Speaker 6: but we we actually had a zoom or a skype
Speaker 6: with the producers who were gonna be shooting the video,
Speaker 6: and there French and like we struggled to understand what.
Speaker 2: I'm just like you guys.
Speaker 6: Kind of sounds.
Speaker 4: The lovely people were so.
Speaker 6: Sweet and and the lady had this beautiful voice. It
Speaker 6: was almost like a movie like it was just and
Speaker 6: we like, oh.
Speaker 2: Look whatever, oh my god, Wow Wow. Can I ask
Speaker 2: one more question?
Speaker 5: So, in messing with loops and sample and beats and
Speaker 5: things like movie dialogue and horses and everything that you
Speaker 5: that you end up creating your music.
Speaker 2: With, how often do.
Speaker 5: You go in with with an idea, I'm going for
Speaker 5: something specific, but then as quest eleven, I am constantly
Speaker 5: talking about, yeah, some kind of happy accident happens and
Speaker 5: ends up something better than your original idea or different.
Speaker 5: And how often does that play into what we hear
Speaker 5: in the final product.
Speaker 3: It happens all the time. Really, that's almost the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Like you know, like we will talk about like where
Speaker 3: we want to try and go next, but you but
Speaker 3: you can't predict the mood you're going to be in
Speaker 3: and the record you're going to be sampling at that time,
Speaker 3: and maybe just one little like a bit of atmosphere
Speaker 3: at the end of someone's song or something. It's like
Speaker 3: and you're just in the right mood to hear how
Speaker 3: you could flip that.
Speaker 4: Moment and.
Speaker 5: If you put something, if you put something in the
Speaker 5: wrong spot, and then if you put it a beat
Speaker 5: behind or something, and suddenly you're a rhythmic genius.
Speaker 4: That's also like our friendship too.
Speaker 3: It's like having to be able to tell each other
Speaker 3: that you know, that thing you made yesterday morning in
Speaker 3: five minutes is like, is better than the thing you
Speaker 3: spend a month on when you had this big concept
Speaker 3: and you know, yeah, you just captured some magic there,
Speaker 3: and that's we should roll with that, you know. I
Speaker 3: think that was that was also part of Wildflow two,
Speaker 3: is like that magic of the five minutes, finding the
Speaker 3: great loop and everything, and then we were just layer
Speaker 3: and layer and layer, and in the end the initial
Speaker 3: thing is like this much of something that's like that,
Speaker 3: and then we like we went through a process towards
Speaker 3: the end of making it with which took a lot
Speaker 3: of that away and this started to shine again.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Kurt vow Man, how did y'all go with him
Speaker 7: his record? He's all right, that's like I love that
Speaker 7: song and I always dug him. How did y'all hook up?
Speaker 4: It was?
Speaker 3: That was like a last song we finished for the record,
Speaker 3: and once again it was a beautiful piece of music.
Speaker 3: But we just and I just play his records like
Speaker 3: all the time, so huge fan, and we just reached out,
Speaker 3: which reached out on Instagram and he was like down
Speaker 3: for it. I think he might have meant messaged us
Speaker 3: about something else in the past and then we're like,
Speaker 3: we've got this song and yeah, he just did this
Speaker 3: beautiful kind of like poetic rambling spoken word thing that
Speaker 3: was beautiful.
Speaker 4: I still remember the day that that arrived. Actually, it
Speaker 4: was like.
Speaker 6: Like I remember the day that that Robbie played it
Speaker 6: to me, and after he put the vocals into the track,
Speaker 6: and we had that track for a long time and
Speaker 6: it was just kind of like what do we do
Speaker 6: with it? Like the melodic kind of thing, and then
Speaker 6: he played with the thing that curtain and I was
Speaker 6: just like, played again he played. I just went that's done.
Speaker 6: That's perfect. That's exactly what you know. Just one of
Speaker 6: those things where you're like you don't have to am
Speaker 6: and a about it. It's like, oh, we have to
Speaker 6: change it around a little bit, or maybe if we
Speaker 6: cut this bit of perfect. It just felt so good
Speaker 6: and it was just like, that's it, that's done.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: What made y'all come back? Because I'm be real, I
Speaker 7: was surprised to see that we got an Avalanche's album
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty because after Wildflower, I was expecting Night
Speaker 7: we would be another ten years. I was ready to
Speaker 7: wait it out, but y'all came back. I was like,
Speaker 7: all right, what led to the I guess the quicker
Speaker 7: turnaround in records like where are you'll at now? In
Speaker 7: your lives where y'all can kind of turn around a
Speaker 7: little quicker.
Speaker 3: I think we were just freed up from the long
Speaker 3: sixteen years. You know, we felt the pressure to follow
Speaker 3: offense I left you, and then once we made another
Speaker 3: really great sample based record in Wildcloud, that we felt like,
Speaker 3: you know that that was a really worthy follow up
Speaker 3: since I left you, we just felt free, and you know,
Speaker 3: we just got back to the very simple flow of
Speaker 3: creating and not overthinking, and it's just flowing really quickly.
Speaker 3: We've already got a bunch more songs as well, and.
Speaker 6: It's so it's so fun to be an actual touring
Speaker 6: band and not you know, broke musicians in our houses
Speaker 6: working around you know, we played Coachella and we're doing
Speaker 6: Glaston Raymond, like what we should have been doing this
Speaker 6: ten years ago. Like that's inspiration for us.
Speaker 2: And brand I love it.
Speaker 1: Wait, my last question about a guest on your record, what.
Speaker 2: Was the process of like working with a River's Kuma? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And did you did you resist any Pinkerton fan
Speaker 1: out moments or just you.
Speaker 3: Know that was so cool And I think we grew
Speaker 3: up loving like you know, we have love for like
Speaker 3: the beach boys, and he's someone who I can hear
Speaker 3: that in his music and he's like, I can write
Speaker 3: such an amazing pop hook. Yeah, you know, And I
Speaker 3: mean Tony can tell the story. But I think we'd
Speaker 3: already tracked the song. And then he was in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Did we meet him beforehand, Tony or no?
Speaker 6: He so he sent us like the vocals, so he
Speaker 6: had like sent a spreadsheet with three different lyric lyric
Speaker 6: paragraphs of.
Speaker 3: All his hooks, just in a spreadsheet laid out, and he.
Speaker 6: Was like, choose, choose one, but we need to hear
Speaker 6: the melodies, like we want to hear how it goes.
Speaker 6: So he's like, okay, and he set the melodies for
Speaker 6: each you know, little lyric thing he had and.
Speaker 2: Like a whole bunch of hooks and you could choose.
Speaker 6: One, he said, he said three. So in the end
Speaker 6: we were just like, they're all really good. Can we
Speaker 6: have them all? So, I mean we worked them all
Speaker 6: into the into the track eventually, and you know, like
Speaker 6: the outro and the verse of the chorus and so
Speaker 6: that made up the three different things. But and so
Speaker 6: we ended up meeting him in Melbourne and like they
Speaker 6: were out they were supporting the food fighters at Big
Speaker 6: Stadium and we're like, okay, we'll go. So Robbie and
Speaker 6: I spent a day like looking at all the coolest
Speaker 6: bars to take him in Melbourne, and you know, you
Speaker 6: want to impress him and do all these really cool things.
Speaker 6: And in the end it was raining, and all he
Speaker 6: wanted to do is like we got some umbrellas from
Speaker 6: the hotel. He just wanted to walk around the city
Speaker 6: in the rain. And then we stopped at a Starbucks
Speaker 6: and had a coffee and spoke for about an hour
Speaker 6: and then went back to the hotel. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I guess we won't be going to this cool bar
Speaker 6: where there's like, you know, all the girls and all
Speaker 6: the crazy shit. Come on, We're just sit in Starbucks.
Speaker 6: But in that way, it was like perfect.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, wait, speaking of your Beach Boys fandom, assuming
Speaker 1: assuming that the woman who worked with you for sample
Speaker 1: clearances is the same lady that cleared the samples for
Speaker 1: Paul's boutique. I don't know which albums he did it for,
Speaker 1: but I would assume it's Paul's boutique because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of samples. Were you guys even aware of Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson's hip hop album that was produced by the Dust Brothers.
Speaker 4: The world question does not.
Speaker 1: Know about this? Yeah, so, uh, I guess the story
Speaker 1: is that, you know. I mean, at the time when
Speaker 1: the Beast Boys first signed a Capitol, I guess, uh.
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson had gotten a copy of Paul's boutique and
Speaker 1: was kind of impressed because they explained to him and
Speaker 1: like how the album was made and how all these
Speaker 1: samples and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: He was really impressed by it.
Speaker 1: So he hit up the Dust Brothers and said, I
Speaker 1: too want to do uh an album, and he wound
Speaker 1: up making a I think they made like five or
Speaker 1: six songs together, and.
Speaker 2: One of them I think was called smart Girls or whatever.
Speaker 7: But it's it's nice Brian he rapping, or it's just
Speaker 7: oh boy.
Speaker 2: I think YouTube if you if you YouTube, no.
Speaker 6: Check this out?
Speaker 2: Yeah wait wait wait.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, Because the thing is is that every
Speaker 1: time I tell the story, I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: I know, I know for starters that I actually talked
Speaker 1: to Brian Wilson about this in person, and I talked
Speaker 1: to the Dust Brothers, But even in my mind, I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: did I imagine that, but.
Speaker 6: It's no, it doesn't seem real.
Speaker 2: Wait is it still on on YouTube? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He he did it. He did a song. Okay, so
Speaker 1: smart Girls, Yeah, Smart Girls. Capitol rejected the album, but
Speaker 1: it's still out there. It came out in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: and yeah, Matt Matt Dyke like the yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: those those guys produced it, and yeah it was.
Speaker 2: It was the Brian Wilson rap album. It was called
Speaker 2: Sweet Insanity.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's it. That seems like a fitting title for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: I just want to say just you know, like I
Speaker 1: try to keep my cool with guests, you know, half
Speaker 1: the time on this platform, but yeah, man, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you guys personally because I will say that
Speaker 1: in hearing your record that's what really planted the seed
Speaker 1: in my head on how my DJ gigs should go,
Speaker 1: because I just never thought, I mean, yeah, like again,
Speaker 1: I was raised on that certain bomb.
Speaker 2: Squad type of hip hop that anything could go.
Speaker 1: But when when I heard this album, that's when I realized, like, oh,
Speaker 1: anything can really happen in a DJ set in a
Speaker 1: sort of a creative context. So I will say that
Speaker 1: after hearing your album, and I guess I heard it
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two thousand and one, Like that's
Speaker 1: when I just totally wipe the slate clean of what
Speaker 1: was current, what was then my DJ set, and my
Speaker 1: whole goal was like, well, I'm just doing the avalanches
Speaker 1: do and just throw any and everything in my DJ set,
Speaker 1: be it something normal, something off kilter, is something unorthodox,
Speaker 1: something you know. Just I thank y'all for that. Like,
Speaker 1: you guys were definitely the impetus to like my my
Speaker 1: my DJ rebirth that I've been running away with like
Speaker 1: for the last twenty years. Man, but you guys are are
Speaker 1: are are are true geniuses?
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I thank you for doing the show with us.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. That's really cold.
Speaker 6: This has been yeah, this has been so fun.
Speaker 2: O thank you guys. Thanks you really all right? Well
Speaker 2: are you done?
Speaker 7: Oh? I was just gonna ask because I guess my
Speaker 7: last thing. The other artists like kind of soul artists
Speaker 7: in uh in you guys region, So yeah, Australia. So
Speaker 7: like I'm thinking of course Highest Coyote, Fat Freddy's Drop.
Speaker 7: I know they're kind of more of a ska uh
Speaker 7: kind of band. Lisa could call it, like what relationship
Speaker 7: do you have with that? Community that the soul you know,
Speaker 7: I guess R and B community.
Speaker 2: What's that like?
Speaker 3: Well where where just like kind of a couple of
Speaker 3: old men who liked each other on the pod benchit
Speaker 3: every day and talk about the weather or whatever. Like
Speaker 3: we don't like I guess we're off and traveling, but
Speaker 3: we're kind of not really like.
Speaker 7: On the scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, except that, except to say that there is just
Speaker 3: like it's just a very warm music community here in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Everybody is very supportive. I think it's maybe because it's
Speaker 3: so geographically isolated. It's like there's there's just like it's
Speaker 3: very supportive. Anyway, we always feel very supportive.
Speaker 2: That's what's up, Steve. That's right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you left me out of the Michelle Obama episode
Speaker 5: and the jimmyown as well.
Speaker 1: For great callback, greatback. We have a quest love supreme
Speaker 1: fan Ticcolo and Steve. We like to thank the Avalanches
Speaker 1: uh for for kicking it with us.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah man.
Speaker 7: This is I never thought. Yeah, I'm I don't think
Speaker 7: I've read an interview with y'all let alone, you know
Speaker 7: and a half, So this was this is a dream
Speaker 7: Cone Drew Man. Thank you guys.
Speaker 6: Yeah, seriously, it has been so much, so good, so
Speaker 6: much fun.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you guys, Thank you guys on behalf
Speaker 1: of Fun. Take Alottle, Unpaid Bill and Layah and uh
Speaker 1: Sugar Steve, quest Love and this is quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: We will see you next week next co Ran. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Hey, this is Sugar Steve.
Speaker 5: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 5: q LS.
Speaker 6: Let us know what you thinks and it should be
Speaker 6: next to sit.
Speaker 2: Down with us.
Speaker 6: Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, What's.
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