Speaker 1: Hello, it's Alec Baldwin. We're going to rebroadcast an episode
Speaker 1: from our archives this week. You'll hear my conversation with
Speaker 1: Quest Love. His band The Roots as a fixture on
Speaker 1: late night television, but the iconoclastic artist has recently added
Speaker 1: film producer to his bio with the release of the
Speaker 1: movie Summer of Soul. Will have new episodes of Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing beginning March. Until then, enjoy my talk with
Speaker 1: Quest Love. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. His family and folks close to him
Speaker 1: call him a mere. That's a mere Khalib Thompson, but
Speaker 1: you probably know him as Quest Love, Philly native music
Speaker 1: history savant and drummer and music director for the Grammy
Speaker 1: Award winning hip hop group The Roots. When The Roots
Speaker 1: aren't in the studio or out on tour, they're backing
Speaker 1: up Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. But dude, I
Speaker 1: gotta say, any one of the hardest working guys ever,
Speaker 1: we love you so much, you know, and you and
Speaker 1: the guys is the coolest. We've been doing this together
Speaker 1: for what like seven years and years he's been called
Speaker 1: America's bandleader year old drummer is also a DJ, and
Speaker 1: he's been a caterer. He just came out with a
Speaker 1: book about food this year. Quest Love is constantly creating,
Speaker 1: trying to do the many things he loves seemingly all
Speaker 1: at once. But one thing quest Love doesn't do well
Speaker 1: is take compliments, which explains his reaction to a very
Speaker 1: flattering profile in The New Yorker. I was pleased you were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've been taught to not relish and
Speaker 1: celebration of of press stuff because I do so much. Um,
Speaker 1: you can't let him matter. I mean, after a while,
Speaker 1: it's just like, okay, I'm it's like now, I don't
Speaker 1: think I've watched tonight show episod like two years. You
Speaker 1: haven't watched your show unless it's super epic. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's like Phil Collins, then I'll watch it to
Speaker 1: make sure. Have we firstly started? We started? Okay? Um?
Speaker 1: I read this piece in the New Yorker, and I mean,
Speaker 1: just from my money, I mean, these press things aren't
Speaker 1: that important. You're right, but this piece is very complimentary
Speaker 1: and real and honest, and I'm thinking, what do you
Speaker 1: miss about them? What do you miss? About Philly is
Speaker 1: its street, stage, Avenue, Sage Avenue, Mom and Dad, the drums,
Speaker 1: the basement. What do you miss about back before you
Speaker 1: made it? You know what? You know, it's weird. Um.
Speaker 1: My sister always rags me about this. Um. And this
Speaker 1: will probably mark the first time that I haven't made
Speaker 1: a pilgrimage. Um. There's certain luminaries in hip hop that
Speaker 1: will go back to the old hood. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: dog like, why are you? Why are you driving up
Speaker 1: Bentley through the projects? You know what I mean? Like that,
Speaker 1: having that moment, I'm in minds the exact opposite because cars,
Speaker 1: like I'm still driving my first car, which is still ding.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to give it up. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have other cars, but my scion Is is my baby.
Speaker 1: But um uh, I don't know like I have this,
Speaker 1: I often have this craving to drive back, just drive
Speaker 1: back and look for old ghosts. Um. It's it's weird.
Speaker 1: It's it's even uh even like with with food, like
Speaker 1: I'll question why am I sticking to a certain diet
Speaker 1: from my childhood? Am I hoping to to find old ghosts?
Speaker 1: Or I don't know what it is, but a diet
Speaker 1: from your childhood. I mean, I'm in a place now,
Speaker 1: in a position in which I could be at the
Speaker 1: prime healthiest of my life if I chose to. And
Speaker 1: you know, as I speak to you, I'm back on
Speaker 1: that bandwagon in the piece you talk about a green
Speaker 1: chorus of health people around you, whatever, they're back. They're
Speaker 1: back of this singing louder than ever because you asked
Speaker 1: for it, because I let two thousand sixteen be two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, and it's you know, it took a
Speaker 1: toll on me. So I decided after Thanksgiving, I'm going
Speaker 1: back to you know, to to fight for my life again. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think during Thanksgiving, I don't know, I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about those psychological process and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what is it when you taste these college greens?
Speaker 1: What is it when you when you eat this particular
Speaker 1: type of soul food? Like are you missing memories of
Speaker 1: of of grandmam On on a Sunday? Like food was
Speaker 1: a very big part of our my childhood. And uh,
Speaker 1: I'll say, like the process would start on Thursday. I'd
Speaker 1: stay at my grandmother's house and it was always like
Speaker 1: it was an event and Thursdays like okay, she and
Speaker 1: her sisters would start the process of cooking Sunday dinner,
Speaker 1: so Thursdays, Friday's, Saturday's even like while watching Soul Train,
Speaker 1: I'd help with snap beans. Uh. They're the type of
Speaker 1: people that would like start a cake on a Monday
Speaker 1: and drown it in uh brandy for about three weeks,
Speaker 1: don't touch that can come here and you know that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Uh. So it's like always a big
Speaker 1: process for this sprawling Sunday dinner. Like every Sunday was
Speaker 1: like Thanksgiving. Every Sunday was Thanksgiving and special. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was special. So I don't know, maybe I'm looking for
Speaker 1: my identity now that I've been sort of uh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say misplaced or you know, I've I've
Speaker 1: transitioned to another life, another lifestyle which I'm kind of
Speaker 1: separate from my childhood memories, which probably explains the Soul
Speaker 1: Train obsession, which explains like now now that I've I've
Speaker 1: had time to really think about it, and especially in
Speaker 1: the last week, it's it's making sense. Like I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm collecting seven episodes of Soul Train because I
Speaker 1: really think that's an awesome show. Of course, I think
Speaker 1: it's an awesome show. But you know, in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, yeah, in my mind, I'm thinking, Okay, the
Speaker 1: Frankie Valley seven episode of Soul Train, my sister and
Speaker 1: I almost burnt down the house using the Jiffy popcorn
Speaker 1: on the stove. Uh. The Johnny Guitar Watson episode of
Speaker 1: Soul Train, I remember, like cutting my hand on the
Speaker 1: the no frills Ravioli from path Mark. Uh. The seventy
Speaker 1: nine episode of The Jackson's Remember stubbing my tail in
Speaker 1: the coffee Like there's there's certain childhood memories that are
Speaker 1: associated with every episode of Soul Train. So I think
Speaker 1: that's why I hang onto it um and plus like
Speaker 1: being part of a uh, you know, being in the
Speaker 1: quote unquote hip hop generation, a culture that celebrates youth
Speaker 1: so much. Um. I think just the idea of transitioning
Speaker 1: or metamorphosis or even just vanishing, which I think I
Speaker 1: think the idea of vanishing is what's really controlling a
Speaker 1: lot of Americans thoughts in two thousand sixteen. The idea
Speaker 1: of not mattering old traditions leaving the idea of change,
Speaker 1: The idea of it is related to the election or
Speaker 1: not know, just every yeah, everything it could be the election,
Speaker 1: it could be me personally. I think they have a
Speaker 1: sense of somethings vanishing. Um yeah, I think just in general,
Speaker 1: there's something about two thousand and sixteen that is transitioning
Speaker 1: more than anything. I for one, UM, as a musician
Speaker 1: and a lover of the arts. Um, you know, this
Speaker 1: is the the largest amount of I mean this yeer
Speaker 1: volume of people dying in two thousand and sixteen. Um,
Speaker 1: it's for me, this is this is uh a message.
Speaker 1: I feel more of my childhood being I feel more
Speaker 1: me being stripped away than just like oh, Natalie Cole died, Oh,
Speaker 1: Mauric's White died, Prince died, Oh, Like you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's up to l twenty three key members of my
Speaker 1: life that you know, shape my life are like now
Speaker 1: going in this year, this year, dude, I mean my
Speaker 1: It's to the point that even when I was writing
Speaker 1: um on my Instagram the there's a well known, well
Speaker 1: loved house singer named Colonel Abrams, I was hesitating to
Speaker 1: write a tribute to him on Instagram because now, like
Speaker 1: it was to the point where people were like, oh, mirror,
Speaker 1: you're just the the obituary historian, like your Instagram has
Speaker 1: come become nothing, but these long two paragraph tributes to
Speaker 1: that of I was life like. It's it's almost like
Speaker 1: a joke down and that's that's where it's come to.
Speaker 1: But I think more than that, it's just I think
Speaker 1: that all of us right now are fearing a transition,
Speaker 1: if you will. So you know, when I when I
Speaker 1: do drive back home and you know, sit there in
Speaker 1: the parking lot, and and he here at the house
Speaker 1: and everything, I don't know. I think I'm maybe in
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm Jacob Marley looking for my younger seven
Speaker 1: year old self on going to school or something. You see,
Speaker 1: this is the thing I want to get to, which
Speaker 1: is when I read the article, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to keep referencing that article, but when I read the article,
Speaker 1: it's like you kind of get the sense of, like
Speaker 1: how much longer are you going to do this? That
Speaker 1: this is gonna be enough for you, meaning music will
Speaker 1: be in your life maybe in some other way. Something
Speaker 1: tells me your love, your worship, music being in your
Speaker 1: DNA in the way it is so completely from what
Speaker 1: I read. I mean, you being people, you're like some
Speaker 1: combination of like, uh, you're like Mozart and Alan Turing.
Speaker 1: You know this savantage freak in a good way about
Speaker 1: music and souf an entertainment for that matter. But I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: so I assume you'll have someplace in your life where
Speaker 1: do you think it's weird, Because since that New Yorker
Speaker 1: article came out, um, it is blastom and bloomed tenfold
Speaker 1: um to the point where I guess at that time, Uh,
Speaker 1: I had let's say, I had maybe eight jobs, um
Speaker 1: up until early January. I mean I had six sixteen jobs.
Speaker 1: Like I just decided maybe a month ago to not
Speaker 1: return to n y U to teach, um because what
Speaker 1: were you teaching there? Um? I taught music history. I
Speaker 1: taught h at Clive Davis Music School. Me and Harry Wagner,
Speaker 1: who controls all of Universal Music's reissues. So anytime you
Speaker 1: get like he's the guy that has to sit back
Speaker 1: and figure out how to resell you Marvin Gaye's box
Speaker 1: set or anything from Motown or anything from the Rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: anybody Universal related on that label. So he and I
Speaker 1: taught at n y U for the last five years, um,
Speaker 1: and mostly we we I like that experience. Uh it
Speaker 1: got scary the last year because suddenly I realized, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean you you you have children, so I'm sure
Speaker 1: that there's a point in your life where you just
Speaker 1: a sentence started with millennials like you know, I go there, right,
Speaker 1: And it was frustrating. It's it's it's an amazing mystery
Speaker 1: because no, I mean, some some are I mean some
Speaker 1: are well to do. I've realized that some came from
Speaker 1: the lineage of oh that's your father, you know that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Um. But it was to the point where,
Speaker 1: because the information is so abundant now, I actually caught
Speaker 1: myself wanting them to teach me as I was. I mean,
Speaker 1: the questions they were asking about, uh uh, like the
Speaker 1: production methods of Michael Jackson's thriller, Well, you know, on
Speaker 1: human nature. Uh here a fairlight synthesizer. But what do
Speaker 1: you think that was the eighty two module or the class. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's using that class that It got scary for a minute.
Speaker 1: But um, what what I specifically taught about was, um,
Speaker 1: the departure record. I'm really I'm really obsessed with the
Speaker 1: idea of self sabotaging. Um. There's a movie that came
Speaker 1: out by comedian Mike er Biglia called Don't Think Twice
Speaker 1: and actually UM coming up. The follow up to Whiplash
Speaker 1: is the film call UH Land of La La with
Speaker 1: Emma Stone La La La La. I'm sorry, I'm getting
Speaker 1: that uh La La lamb with Emma Stone and um
Speaker 1: Ryan Gosling, which sort of UH deals with the same
Speaker 1: UH premise, which is, have you seen Don't Think Twice
Speaker 1: or heard about this film? Okay? So Don't Think Twice
Speaker 1: is a film about um a groundlings or UH kind
Speaker 1: of a comedy troupe UM you CBS comedy troupe of
Speaker 1: like seven people UM who are really like at the
Speaker 1: top of the game with improv and then one day
Speaker 1: a Steve Higgins figure UH comes in and changes one
Speaker 1: of their lives by offering them a spot on an
Speaker 1: snlish type of platform and UH one of them, one
Speaker 1: of the seven that have been tightened it forever will
Speaker 1: clearly be a star. UM. And of the seven, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's how they deal with the idea of
Speaker 1: again set operation and and it's it's just an amazing
Speaker 1: two hour exercise and self sabotage. So how it relates
Speaker 1: to the class that I teach, UH, I teach about
Speaker 1: departure albums. Uh. In other words, uh, okay, So the
Speaker 1: Beatles got tired of being the Beatles. They got tired
Speaker 1: of playing in stadiums in which they couldn't hear themselves
Speaker 1: of the screaming and yeah, yeah, you know the story.
Speaker 1: Assuming that you're in love, love love, assuming that your
Speaker 1: your listeners are on your i Q level uman I
Speaker 1: trust Okay, So they get a sha stadium. After that,
Speaker 1: they pack it in right. Then they decide, we're tired
Speaker 1: of being the Beatles, so let's just make uh you know,
Speaker 1: a psychedelic record and Timpanaley references and and we'll stop
Speaker 1: being the Beatles. And then it backfires. It really makes
Speaker 1: them like the greatest band of all time. So speaking
Speaker 1: of Sergeant Peppers, that's an example. Or the opposite is
Speaker 1: sly Stone, whom uh after having a massive like one
Speaker 1: single hits off of his records, finally hits jackpot in
Speaker 1: uh nine nine with the stand album and then a
Speaker 1: very you know uh uh a victorious uh uh run
Speaker 1: at at Woodstock uh leaves his audience like just you know,
Speaker 1: begging for more and whatever his follow up records is
Speaker 1: going to be, like, you know, it's it's the ultimate
Speaker 1: Alley you set up. Someone just shot at alley you
Speaker 1: and all he has to do is run to the
Speaker 1: to the rim and dunk it. And what does he do?
Speaker 1: He makes one of the most depressing let's go get that.
Speaker 1: What is that's called there's a riot going on? Now?
Speaker 1: The thing is that, yeah, family affair. Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: there's a riode going on. Leaves a lot of people
Speaker 1: and conflict because it's essentially the first Funk record. But
Speaker 1: what I try to explain to the class is the
Speaker 1: equivalent of you know, how like your first okay, not
Speaker 1: for you personally, but how a person in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, how their first instinct will be to pull
Speaker 1: out their cell phone. If a car accident happens, they
Speaker 1: pull out their cell phone. Oh, fight happens, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pull out my cell phone to watch it. What there
Speaker 1: is the right going on is is really you're you're
Speaker 1: watching in real time a human being having a meltdown
Speaker 1: on wax and it's it is it's like, do you know, personally,
Speaker 1: why was he melting down? Well, that's the thing. There's
Speaker 1: there's survivor's guilt that people don't talk about, especially with
Speaker 1: black people. The idea of like you reference in the
Speaker 1: article where you say the thirty three kids, and this
Speaker 1: one's dead, this one's in jail, this one's right, and
Speaker 1: you made it do survivor's guilt. Survivor's guilt is real.
Speaker 1: Where is he from. He's from the Bay Area, Oakland.
Speaker 1: So I mean there's the pressure of staying true, staying
Speaker 1: true to yourself, not not selling out. Uh, the just
Speaker 1: the pressure of having to now deal with be careful.
Speaker 1: You know you here all the time. Be careful of
Speaker 1: what you asked for. And I feel as though in
Speaker 1: those two years of of the pressure of now I
Speaker 1: have to live up to the expectation and the brilliance
Speaker 1: that people expect of me. And what does he do? He,
Speaker 1: I mean, Slim and Family Stone was in the age
Speaker 1: of Martin Luther King, the the utopian dream. It was
Speaker 1: a group of black and white musicians, a male and
Speaker 1: female musicians. I mean, it was the utopian poster idea
Speaker 1: of what Martin Luther King's dreams should have been. And
Speaker 1: he just piste on the legacy. In turn, he also
Speaker 1: gave us funk music. I mean, you know, historians will
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, it's the first time a
Speaker 1: drum machine was used, and it's the first time, you know,
Speaker 1: the E cord was used on a on a base
Speaker 1: for funk reasons. So it's like, what's the big hit
Speaker 1: that comes out before this album? What's he riding the
Speaker 1: wave on? What song? Uh? The the hit before was? Uh?
Speaker 1: I mean the album before was stand Now to sort
Speaker 1: of stall for time, Epic Records put out the Greatest
Speaker 1: Hits album and put three other songs that weren't associate.
Speaker 1: So thank you for myself, thank you for letting me
Speaker 1: be myself hot fun this summertime. Everybody's like, even even
Speaker 1: the throwaway singers were like, yes, we're waiting, We're waiting
Speaker 1: for this big statement and he pisses all over it.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's the same for you know, Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson wanting to escape the family and be his own man.
Speaker 1: Like making Off the Wall was it departs record the
Speaker 1: Beastie Boys not wanting to be known as these these
Speaker 1: party frat guys and want to make a serious, uh
Speaker 1: piece of art with Paul's boutique the follow up to
Speaker 1: License to Ill. So what I basically do is I
Speaker 1: take eight or nine records of Departure Records. Some of
Speaker 1: them they were all made with the premise of I
Speaker 1: need to throw away and run away from what I
Speaker 1: once was. Some of them made a more successful a
Speaker 1: lot of the Beatles, Uh, some of them were complete bust.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's the jury still out on Satanic Majesty's
Speaker 1: request by the Stones. But you know it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the Stones were never gonna get Beatles
Speaker 1: love and they know it well. They tried. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I have to give it to them. They tried.
Speaker 1: So it's really it's really just about examining the psychological
Speaker 1: process of of making music and why we run away
Speaker 1: from success or the idea of doing it. Did you wait,
Speaker 1: let me ask you, because this did you? Did you
Speaker 1: run away from success? Um? Okay, So the Roots were
Speaker 1: everyone's favorite underground secret. Like you know, that's if you
Speaker 1: ever meet a music snob and there's like that that
Speaker 1: one thing that you know, there's the band that they
Speaker 1: know about that you don't know about, and that makes
Speaker 1: them cooler than you, and then suddenly you discover it
Speaker 1: and then everyone discovers it, and then it suddenly it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: like everyone has my toy now in the pool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were that for a lot of people. And then
Speaker 1: with our fourth record, suddenly we hit jack pop because
Speaker 1: we realized what the formula was to not to monetize,
Speaker 1: but to too two gain acceptance. We realized what the
Speaker 1: formula was, but acceptance with what you say. It seems
Speaker 1: to me you wanted acceptance with something else, meaning something
Speaker 1: tells me. Because you're so acute about music, you didn't
Speaker 1: have a number one single. This is what you're gonna
Speaker 1: learn about me. And you could and you could have
Speaker 1: sat down and something tells me. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this to be kind. You could write a number one
Speaker 1: single in the car on the way to the office
Speaker 1: right now when you leave here, and you didn't do
Speaker 1: that because fear fear. We'll be back in a minute.
Speaker 1: This is what happens. Okay. So when we started in UM,
Speaker 1: the idea of the roots, the idea of we would
Speaker 1: be pegged into alternative hip hop. Now, when we first
Speaker 1: came out, they were like, or they asked jazz. It
Speaker 1: was like, basically, if you weren't, if you weren't holding
Speaker 1: your middle finger out to the camera, you know it's
Speaker 1: singing straight out of Compton. If you weren't in way
Speaker 1: you weren't the status quo of what people perceived to
Speaker 1: be as hip hop. Um. But again, like for people
Speaker 1: that are not immersed in hip hop culture, and when
Speaker 1: they just turn the channel and just see no no bitches, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no, then they just think, oh, that's all
Speaker 1: it is, um, which it isn't. Like hip hop is
Speaker 1: a wide array of art and it just so happens
Speaker 1: that the five percent that catches on is what's in
Speaker 1: embroidered people's minds as what it is. But emotionally violent,
Speaker 1: that's what they think it is. But it's so much
Speaker 1: more than it is. So I came into uh metaphorically speaking,
Speaker 1: we got to the train platform as the first wave
Speaker 1: of alternative hip hop. Uh train was leaving. You know,
Speaker 1: like when you run for the train and the doors
Speaker 1: closed and you see the train leaving, you have to
Speaker 1: wait for another twelve minutes for the next train to come.
Speaker 1: That was the roots. The first train was the Jungle Brothers,
Speaker 1: a tripolic Us de las soul. Uh. It kinda uh
Speaker 1: ended with arrested development like a nine one, like they
Speaker 1: won like four Grammys. They were the darlings of you know,
Speaker 1: finally hip hop as in art, like you know, people
Speaker 1: were were exclaiming that like our new savers, and then
Speaker 1: the backlash happened, like imagine that being the Obama era,
Speaker 1: like finally a new beginning. And then suddenly the next
Speaker 1: train comes in and tonight Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg
Speaker 1: coming in with guns and bitches and ship and people like, no,
Speaker 1: this is what we want. So imagine this election, like
Speaker 1: how can we go twelve steps back? And that was
Speaker 1: the mentality, and so we had to wait it out
Speaker 1: and waited out and literally embraced for it's a tsunami.
Speaker 1: We just said we're gonna pull a Hendricks. We're gonna
Speaker 1: leave America. We're gonna move to London as a hub,
Speaker 1: find refuge in in in London. Uh, get our musicianship together,
Speaker 1: get our show together, get our songwriting together, get our
Speaker 1: production here. Uh. We got a record deal in ninety two.
Speaker 1: We exiled in um three years when three years you
Speaker 1: live we were on. We were on Geffen Records, and
Speaker 1: In Records had so much money, Guns and Roses, Nirvana, Uh,
Speaker 1: Aaron Smith. They made so much money that Geffen was like, yo,
Speaker 1: let's start a black music department where rock label. We
Speaker 1: have no black acts, and you know, we want to
Speaker 1: cash in on on, you know, the craze. And so
Speaker 1: because you just stayed well, there was a d G C.
Speaker 1: But um, we were basically kind of their guinea pig experiment.
Speaker 1: Um they were like, you know, we'll build the staff eventually,
Speaker 1: but for now, just keep the receipts. Here's the credit card.
Speaker 1: Like that's what we did. And then, um, anybody married
Speaker 1: back then with kids that they had to pull over
Speaker 1: there or no, everybody was single. We were all single,
Speaker 1: were all out of high school and college and everything.
Speaker 1: And so what winds up happening was when we first
Speaker 1: signed Aerosmith announced we're gonna leave Geffen. Remember Pump came
Speaker 1: out and it was like really big seller. So they
Speaker 1: went back to Sony and so I was like, all right, whatever.
Speaker 1: And then a little bit later it was kind of
Speaker 1: obviously like Guns and Roses was not going to have
Speaker 1: a follow up to use your loosing one and two,
Speaker 1: and I mean they had an ep of the spaghetti incidence,
Speaker 1: but that really didn't make any noise, and so Guns
Speaker 1: and Roses wasn't there to have a follow up record
Speaker 1: to make the more millions. And then Nirvana came and
Speaker 1: you know, just changed everything and make gazillions. So then
Speaker 1: when April comes and Kurt Cobain makes his exodus, my
Speaker 1: manager called me at one in the afternoon and said,
Speaker 1: playing and simple, we're fucked. And I was like, what
Speaker 1: do you mean. He's like, dude, Aerosmith's going guns and
Speaker 1: Roses ain't coming back now, Kirk is gone, and what
Speaker 1: they're gonna do is they're they're just going to drop
Speaker 1: and cut the label in half. I was like, so
Speaker 1: what do we do. He's like, we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: the studio for four days. We're going to finish the record.
Speaker 1: I was like eight songs. He says, yep, I don't
Speaker 1: have any ideas. Make them up on the way there.
Speaker 1: And he's like, we're gonna shoot three videos next week.
Speaker 1: We're gonna shoot the album cut like totally russ and
Speaker 1: then we're gonna take that money. Because we were controlling
Speaker 1: our budget, they'd have a staff, yet we just had
Speaker 1: the credit card. We're going to take our leftover money
Speaker 1: and we're gonna buy tim Plane tickets and get an
Speaker 1: apartment in London and Paula Hendricks and just live there
Speaker 1: and pray to God. That's our only hope, and you
Speaker 1: know that is our only hope. And it worked. Uh.
Speaker 1: We miraculously finished an album and even in rushing it,
Speaker 1: I'm shocked. I mean it was critically claimed and all that.
Speaker 1: So we were in the right mind frame. Shot three videos, Uh,
Speaker 1: kissed everybody goodbye, came to London with a stick of
Speaker 1: a bundle on her best um, stayed in a hotel
Speaker 1: for like maybe a day or two, and then eventually
Speaker 1: found a flat. Got an agent said work is to death.
Speaker 1: We don't care what it was, and like that was
Speaker 1: our Beatles in Hamburg moment. That was our our Hendricks
Speaker 1: living in in in Europe moment. And we made two
Speaker 1: other critically a claimed records. But by the fourth one
Speaker 1: we felt if we didn't deliver the goods, uh, we'll
Speaker 1: be in trouble. And so we had a scientific conversation
Speaker 1: with our label. We said, look, before you, you know,
Speaker 1: divulge all this money into us, let's have a conversation.
Speaker 1: We told them that no matter how good the records are,
Speaker 1: no matter how critically claimed, how many top ten lists
Speaker 1: we make, unless you build us a movement, it's never
Speaker 1: gonna work. And they said, well, what is that. So
Speaker 1: we said, this is what we need. You want the
Speaker 1: short version, long version, He said, give us a short version.
Speaker 1: We said, we need three fifteen passenger vans, we need
Speaker 1: uh expendable kind of uh studio equipment, uh, and we
Speaker 1: need to hire two chefs. And they looked and said
Speaker 1: what the hell. And we explained the plan. We said,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do is every Tuesday at this particular spot,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have jam sessions. And every Friday in the
Speaker 1: mirrors living room, we're gonna have jam sessions. The chefs
Speaker 1: are going to cook all the food to entice the
Speaker 1: artistic community. Because if you say free food, every every
Speaker 1: everybody be surprised. Everybody it comes over and we'll just
Speaker 1: have jam sessions. And eventually, what we figured out in
Speaker 1: those four years was that no one has ever had
Speaker 1: success in music without being contextualized in an artistic community.
Speaker 1: So you think you like Stevie Wonder, but it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you associate Stevie Wonder with Smokey Temptations, Uh, Diana Ross's Supremes,
Speaker 1: the Motown Family. You look at look at someone without
Speaker 1: design to take justin Timberley, you're automatically gonna think oh
Speaker 1: and Sink, Oh, Backstreet Boys, Oh, Brittany Disney, Christina Aguilt.
Speaker 1: You think of the Disney set, you think of of
Speaker 1: I mean Prince grew his own crops, Prince Sheila e Mars,
Speaker 1: Dame of Time. Like everyone that has success, the only
Speaker 1: people that never had success, that had success without a
Speaker 1: family or contextualization was one hit Wonders where d al Yankovik,
Speaker 1: the guys that say Macarena, tiny Tim maybe the McArthur
Speaker 1: part person. But everyone's associated with the movement. You look
Speaker 1: at the police, Okay, they were part of that post
Speaker 1: punk punk movement, early New Ways movement, talking heads like
Speaker 1: even if they don't do it by design, we as
Speaker 1: consumers think that. So we had to grow on crops.
Speaker 1: So as a result, m these three years of having
Speaker 1: the chef the jam sessions week by week, Um, suddenly
Speaker 1: we were writing the story of the next millennium of soul.
Speaker 1: So that's explains Ericabadou D'Angelo. Uh, most deaf tale quality.
Speaker 1: Basically the fourteen or fifteen or so platinum based artists
Speaker 1: in the future, of course, Uh, starting in our living
Speaker 1: room and then expanding having their own careers my words yours.
Speaker 1: But but if if London is graduate school, if you
Speaker 1: will decide to stop. We found success by our fourth album,
Speaker 1: and then, you know, the one thing that we didn't
Speaker 1: plan on was succeeding. Everyone got successful, so we stopped
Speaker 1: paying it for it. Like suddenly it's like, oh, we
Speaker 1: don't need the Jam sessions no more. Like we're an
Speaker 1: MTV every week. Like that's that's what the mentality was.
Speaker 1: And then it all came to I'm not saying it
Speaker 1: came to a screeching halt, but people often asked me,
Speaker 1: what do I talk. There's there's a movie we did
Speaker 1: with Michelle Gandry and Dave Chappelle in two thousand four
Speaker 1: called Black Party. It was Dave Chappelle's version of of
Speaker 1: watt Stacks. It was Dave Chappelle's version of Woodstock, which
Speaker 1: was basically kind of the alternative the alternative hip hop
Speaker 1: UH gathering you know of in Brooklyn. Of all the
Speaker 1: great acts, it's Kanye West, Uh, the Roots, Dead Preys, Ericabaudo,
Speaker 1: common Um, all the all the people that are under
Speaker 1: our umbrella. And something happened that day and I realized,
Speaker 1: just like, okay, if you look at wood Stock, wood
Speaker 1: Stock is not the beginning. You would think like, oh,
Speaker 1: what Stock. All these new acts I've never heard of,
Speaker 1: They're going to be big. Wood Stock was the end
Speaker 1: of the sentence. People think that what stocks the beginning
Speaker 1: of the sentence? What Stocks? The end of the love movement?
Speaker 1: Because next was Altamont and Pain the seventies, the club
Speaker 1: everyone die, Uh, Saturdaynight Fever. People think, be right about disco. Nope,
Speaker 1: that was the end of disco. But the time Holloway
Speaker 1: puts it on screen, it's over right, It's over. So
Speaker 1: this was that morning. I was like, uh, this is
Speaker 1: how it all ends. And you know, it's like a brace.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a the mentality that you had
Speaker 1: of which how am I going to survive the next
Speaker 1: four years? Well, not you personally, but for the average American,
Speaker 1: like I gotta hang on tight. I don't know what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. That's the feeling I had. I mean, on
Speaker 1: on screen, it looked very beautiful, like Mischelle Gandry is
Speaker 1: one of the best directors of all time, and you
Speaker 1: know it. It looked like a beautiful celebration. But in
Speaker 1: my mind, I was like, well, this is where you
Speaker 1: know I once held the baton and now this youngster
Speaker 1: named Kanye West is going to take over the reins
Speaker 1: and he's going to be a new leader. And then
Speaker 1: I'm get up. Um he Yeah, at the time, he
Speaker 1: was the new leader because when he arrived on the set, suddenly,
Speaker 1: and I looked in everyone's eyes, any anyone that was
Speaker 1: on the set that was like under nineteen suddenly came
Speaker 1: at attention and all the energy and attention went to
Speaker 1: his direction. And he was just there like stand outside
Speaker 1: for a second and looking. But he was new it.
Speaker 1: He just got it. Well. He he sort of came
Speaker 1: in his wolf in sheep's clothing approaches. It's kind of brilliant.
Speaker 1: I really regret, like we tried to hide our true
Speaker 1: aspirations and our true heart because we didn't want to
Speaker 1: upset the system. So our thing was like, yes, we
Speaker 1: represent the everyday man, the common man. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's nothing in the Roots narrative that looks appealing to
Speaker 1: black people, Like we don't have any tales of there's
Speaker 1: no tales of of of there's no look, Mom made it,
Speaker 1: that's the narrative. Jay Z's narrative is I made it.
Speaker 1: I made it. Like it's just it's a winning lottery ticket.
Speaker 1: I made it. That was never our narrative. So thus
Speaker 1: the reason I mean, the Roots are more known to
Speaker 1: be Fish or the grateful dead of hip hop than
Speaker 1: you know, the winners of hip hop. But you know,
Speaker 1: don't sleep. Fish is a group that somehow still made
Speaker 1: eight figures a year under the radar. They had to
Speaker 1: shake their ass in a video. They didn't have to
Speaker 1: get mired in controversy. They quietly sell out Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden three nights, and so that for us was a
Speaker 1: better was a better way of survival. Coming up, quest
Speaker 1: Love explains the magic of Jimmy Fallon and how Fallon
Speaker 1: convinced the Roots to join him. On Late night TV
Speaker 1: explore the Here's the Thing Archives. I talked to Danny Bennett,
Speaker 1: who has spent his life managing the career of another
Speaker 1: musical giant, his dad, Tony. I had this epiphany and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm gonna run. I'm gonna do this like
Speaker 1: I'm running for president. And I went to him and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, presidents would not go to Iowa
Speaker 1: if they didn't have to go to Iowa, and and
Speaker 1: and you know, shake the hands, I go instead of
Speaker 1: having people come to you in Vegas. I said your
Speaker 1: music transcends. Right, He's reinventing himself. He's really kicking ass.
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of like taken chances. There's a
Speaker 1: transcendent quality and great art that that, like, he says,
Speaker 1: defies demographics. Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: My guest today is a mere quest Love Thompson. While
Speaker 1: he's best known as the drummer and music director for
Speaker 1: The Roots, the house band on The Tonight Show with
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon, he's also sat in for Erica Badou, Fiona Apple,
Speaker 1: jay Z, saxophonist Joshua Redman, and he's managed to put
Speaker 1: out several books. While some people were surprised when The
Speaker 1: Roots took the Fallon gig, quest Love is a man
Speaker 1: who has a lot he wants to accomplish. People think
Speaker 1: it's money, money, money, and because it's not money, money money,
Speaker 1: you run and do something that frees you so you
Speaker 1: can go do this other thing. And was this gig
Speaker 1: with Jimmy frees you can? I ask you. I hate
Speaker 1: to be the guy that answers your question. With the
Speaker 1: with the question, Okay, so when your first approached to
Speaker 1: do thirty Rock, I mean this is the tail the
Speaker 1: tailing of of Scorsese film uh baby, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: even um um The Cops Boston. Yeah, so even on
Speaker 1: the tail into that, like anyone else, I feel, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is why imire you so much. Anyone else would
Speaker 1: have overthought the situation and defiantly been like no, like
Speaker 1: you know, the particular legacy I want to leave behind
Speaker 1: is this and that? Or you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about your Wikipedia entry as you do.
Speaker 1: I'm all, no, see, I'm obsessed with how's this going
Speaker 1: to look on my Wikipedia? Because you say that, trust me?
Speaker 1: Critic critics. One critic actually said, you know, the sad
Speaker 1: the sad thing about listening to a roots record is
Speaker 1: that I can hear quest Love imagining his Wikipedia entry
Speaker 1: as each song right exactly. So, I mean, how easy
Speaker 1: was it for you to make that transition? Because people
Speaker 1: say to me, like I didn't have posters of Schaefer
Speaker 1: or Doc Steverson on my walls, like one day You'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this, and then it's like you've met with
Speaker 1: the opportunity and it it was. It was a no brainer,
Speaker 1: but it was also on the other hand, I was
Speaker 1: very cautious about it. And my manager at the time said, look,
Speaker 1: this is what's going to happen. The critics that have
Speaker 1: been and you have to understand how the Roots are
Speaker 1: perceived in the critical community. And we kind of unfortunately
Speaker 1: paying herself in this corner where you know, they just
Speaker 1: thought like we were oh so serious, and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like a surface person will look at Bono
Speaker 1: and think like he just thinks of himself too seriously
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, and like overthinks everything. That's
Speaker 1: what critics were thinking about us. And there he was like,
Speaker 1: we need this because what we'll do is it will
Speaker 1: help break the perception of the political seriousness of the Roots.
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, but you know, like I
Speaker 1: had dreams of of doing what he does, like selling
Speaker 1: out stadiums and producing, you know, releasing other records and dada,
Speaker 1: da da da, And he was just conventional goal we
Speaker 1: all have. Yeah, that's a lot. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: good there as well. I don't want to put it
Speaker 1: down to be decaprio. There's a lot of great things
Speaker 1: about being Decaprio. It is, but I was. I so
Speaker 1: fought it, and he says, look, this is like some
Speaker 1: critics gonna snark you, and we've got to use it
Speaker 1: as our motivation to really come back. And I was
Speaker 1: like okay, and sure enough it happened. The first blur
Speaker 1: news blur about the Roots are actually going to be
Speaker 1: a late night band. The guy says, this is the
Speaker 1: most depressing news I've heard. It's the equivalent of Miles
Speaker 1: Davis being a uh subway a street subway, uh busker busker,
Speaker 1: yes exactly, which ironically is how the route started. Um.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like watching Miles David's busking the subway.
Speaker 1: And he's like, there you have it. Like we've always
Speaker 1: been in the position where we are always and that's
Speaker 1: the thing. We've always been underestimated. Like these guys walking
Speaker 1: in with these instruments, they're not real, they're not real
Speaker 1: hip hop. You know, we've always been in the underdog.
Speaker 1: What are you guys gonna do? And he's like, just
Speaker 1: repeat it again, use it to your advantage, Like we
Speaker 1: should define and redefine the coolness of it all, not
Speaker 1: to say that, oh, you know, they're shame or corniness
Speaker 1: associated with the position of being a late night band,
Speaker 1: but it was our chance to make it and for
Speaker 1: us at least, the coolest thing ever. And that's basically
Speaker 1: what it was like. We weren't even really going to
Speaker 1: accept the position. And then Jimmy did something that no
Speaker 1: other human being was able to do uh with us.
Speaker 1: By this point we were like the complete opposite of
Speaker 1: what we were in ninety two. This is like two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. You know, two tour buses, you know,
Speaker 1: high off the hug and everything, and in our glory
Speaker 1: and uh, we just thought, okay, well, yeah, come to
Speaker 1: the show, Jimmy. We just figured, like, at least we'll
Speaker 1: have a friend on television so that when we release
Speaker 1: records we can be on his show and promote it.
Speaker 1: But we're not going to accept this gig. And the
Speaker 1: funniest thing happened. I went away for five minutes to
Speaker 1: do We were in U c. L A campus. I
Speaker 1: went to do a quick uh interview with the campus
Speaker 1: newspaper in my dressing room, and when it was over
Speaker 1: six minutes later, I opened the door and on the
Speaker 1: on the field grass Jimmy and all eight members of
Speaker 1: the Roots. We're in the eight is enough human pyramid stands,
Speaker 1: and I looked at my manager and we are the
Speaker 1: most cynical, snarkiest smartass know it all, You're we're the
Speaker 1: smartest guys in the room and not you. We just
Speaker 1: looked at each other and we're like, we're not getting
Speaker 1: ri this guy, are we? And he just looked like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not. And what Jimmy managed to do was disarm
Speaker 1: us in less than ten minutes, Like it's arek alone?
Speaker 1: Anything that Tarik wears is worth twenty dollars? Like he's
Speaker 1: not driving was on? Yeah, I mean Tarik drives before
Speaker 1: he wears like ten thousand dollar Japanese denim, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. He was on the bottom, like Tarik
Speaker 1: with nerve put his jeans on on the dirty I'm like,
Speaker 1: what did this guy do to talk? What did he do?
Speaker 1: What did he do? I don't I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: figure it. He has he's that guy. He's that guy
Speaker 1: like when you watch the movie and the the guys
Speaker 1: are trying to dissemble the bomb and like point three
Speaker 1: seconds he as the leg of the draw. He knows
Speaker 1: exactly how did disarm you? He literally disarmed us and
Speaker 1: showed us the prose of the situation. It was as
Speaker 1: if we agreed to it already and forgot. Well, but
Speaker 1: let me let me this that I worshiped Jimmy, I
Speaker 1: had And the thing is, Jimmy is guileless, Jimmy's a kid,
Speaker 1: and and and that freedom and that Jimmy's gonna flow
Speaker 1: up the ground and we're all kids, right. But what's
Speaker 1: great is you guys in behind him with I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say cynicism, but there's a gravity, you guys. There's
Speaker 1: a balance, exactly, There's a great there's a great balance there.
Speaker 1: There's a great balance there. What I what I discovered
Speaker 1: the first month in first of all, what I discovered
Speaker 1: about myself and about the band um for starters for
Speaker 1: a band that sat and Rolling Stones twenty Best band
Speaker 1: Live Bands of All Time list. I noticed that we
Speaker 1: never ever practice as a band because our shows are
Speaker 1: Springsteen length, three hours every night, and we we did
Speaker 1: two d shows a night, like every show was like
Speaker 1: its own. I never wanted to snack before the meal.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't wanna before the orgy whatever. Uh right,
Speaker 1: And so when we got there and we were in
Speaker 1: this closed in room, eight of us looking at each other,
Speaker 1: it was the hardest thing in the world to do
Speaker 1: because we never did this before, and like I had
Speaker 1: to call my manager, like yo, we did not know
Speaker 1: how to It was like being naked in public or
Speaker 1: something like. It took three weeks, but suddenly we rehearsed
Speaker 1: and became better musicians. We became better songwriters, became better
Speaker 1: producers because they it's all these challenges of Okay, I
Speaker 1: needed ten second sting for da da da da da da.
Speaker 1: Here's the name of the song now, and it made
Speaker 1: us more focused song like we're now. I felt like
Speaker 1: we've robbed our fan base those initial fifteen years. Is
Speaker 1: because we're so much wiser now at songwriting, at being musicians,
Speaker 1: at entertaining. Like there's so much knowledge that we've gotten
Speaker 1: that we didn't know. I thought it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a cushy retirement gig. Okay, we'll just set off in
Speaker 1: the sunset. I'll be fine, my mom's house will be
Speaker 1: paid off, my I'll be cool. But that was foolish.
Speaker 1: I was made for this gig and didn't realize it yet.
Speaker 1: Are you guys gonna tour perform any time soon? Thinking
Speaker 1: about it, we what was once thirty eight weeks on
Speaker 1: the road is now a normal two days on the
Speaker 1: road is now We're gonna go out again, which is normal.
Speaker 1: We do weekends, we have hiatuses, talk about your books. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's the first point you find time for that. Well.
Speaker 1: The thing is, I'm I'm a serial tweeter, which is
Speaker 1: why I know, like people are ragging our current president
Speaker 1: elect about you know, why do you get up at
Speaker 1: three and and five? That's the best times to tweet? Ever,
Speaker 1: I don't want to defend him publicly that way, but
Speaker 1: I'm too I got the pad next to my bed
Speaker 1: lighting scenes down for TV shows. So um because of
Speaker 1: the the paragraph nature of all my instagrams and and thoughts. Um,
Speaker 1: they were basically like, well, why don't you just write
Speaker 1: a book already? And at first I was resistant to
Speaker 1: it because I was like, how many ideas do I
Speaker 1: have in me? But um, so far, I've written three
Speaker 1: books and I'm kind of proud of it. The first book,
Speaker 1: Moment of Blues, is kind of a a music memoir
Speaker 1: where I talk about life and music, and the second
Speaker 1: one was a passion project. Uh, I'm very obsessed with
Speaker 1: the show Soultering, so wrote The Ultimate Coffee table book
Speaker 1: about Soul Train and uh my my last book was
Speaker 1: something to Food about, which is I discovered that comedians
Speaker 1: and uh chefs are kind of on a parallel creative
Speaker 1: level as musicians. That's what I learned in in fallon
Speaker 1: watching I'm observing David Chang and Dominique Ganzel and all
Speaker 1: these these great chefs when they're preparing foods for our show.
Speaker 1: I started to notice that they think like musicians and
Speaker 1: became friends with them and then did a kind of
Speaker 1: observational study at their creative methods. Um and I guess
Speaker 1: the next book I'm gonna work on is also about
Speaker 1: creativity and creativity well, I'm I'm the guy that doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily I don't marvel at the vehicle more than I'm
Speaker 1: marvel at the machinery that makes it run. And I'm
Speaker 1: always curious about the preparation process, like I beg Higgins
Speaker 1: daily to let me sit in on the like can
Speaker 1: I I want to enter in a SNL so I
Speaker 1: can be And Lauren is not having none of this.
Speaker 1: By the way, UH two be there on the pitch
Speaker 1: meetings like to to when I watched the show on Saturday.
Speaker 1: I'm always wondering what was the pitch, like, like, how
Speaker 1: do they pitch this? And how did it morph into
Speaker 1: what I'm watching right now? I want to know what
Speaker 1: it's like in the beginning. So like I'm always sneaking
Speaker 1: around on the seventeen floor trying to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: how SNL works, So like between chefs and comedians, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to inspire myself with the the creative process. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm also wrestling. Well. The thing I admire and
Speaker 1: the thing I'm so drawn to about you and that's
Speaker 1: so attractive about you is there's this discipline, there's this
Speaker 1: sense of history and at the same time, like Tony Bennett,
Speaker 1: who I always use him as the standard of this,
Speaker 1: it's like, but we also have to have a good time.
Speaker 1: This is what we dreamed of doing, we dreamed of
Speaker 1: being here. Let's have a good time, yes, and enjoy
Speaker 1: it because this is what we wanted. And I get that.
Speaker 1: I get the two from you. I get the discipline
Speaker 1: and and and and and the the the the professionalism,
Speaker 1: if you will, But I also get where You're like,
Speaker 1: let's I enjoy it. Well, I enjoy it now. Before, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe five years ago, I didn't enjoy it because you're
Speaker 1: so immersed in the work, but um, a lot of it. Well,
Speaker 1: I discovered meditating because we're dying. Well yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I hate to be so more of it. But it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, again, growing up in hip hop culture,
Speaker 1: the number one fear in your twenties is like bullets
Speaker 1: in the club. So it's like stay off the club.
Speaker 1: But then at the age of like strokes became a
Speaker 1: new bullet, So it's like insulin. Yes, I had to
Speaker 1: make a choice. So yes, having a clear mind and
Speaker 1: clear thoughts helps, and I know it's it's such a
Speaker 1: hard sell. It saves my life, Like there's no way
Speaker 1: that you can have my rigorous schedule. I feel so
Speaker 1: bit like my inner circle of nine people, I'm the
Speaker 1: only person without gray hair, and I look at them like, wow,
Speaker 1: I pay you people to take the gray hair that
Speaker 1: I I'm not getting. Well, let me just say this
Speaker 1: that you're not married. Now, I have a girlfriend, no kids, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: So here's what I want to here's what I want
Speaker 1: to try to close with if I'm if I'm able,
Speaker 1: do you want to raise kids as well? Absolute would
Speaker 1: that be so cool? You would be such a great parents.
Speaker 1: Anybody that would have you as a parent would be
Speaker 1: so lucky. Well, yeah, thank you. It's weird. I'm bad
Speaker 1: with compliments like yeah. I feel as though everything that
Speaker 1: I'm doing is eventually to pass it on and pass
Speaker 1: the love to to someone. Drummer, DJ, author and fingers
Speaker 1: crossed future father a mere quest Love Thompson. You're listening
Speaker 1: to here's the Thing from w n YC Studios