Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all, it's justin Richmond. Today we have Beach
Speaker 1: House on the show. The Baltimore indie band known for
Speaker 1: their cinematic, psychedelic songs. They're one of those bands that
Speaker 1: manages to envelope you in a sonic landscape when they play,
Speaker 1: You'll hear exactly what I'm talking about. In the title
Speaker 1: track for their new album, Once Twice Melody, Victoria La
Speaker 1: Grand and Alex Scally have a very special musical chemistry.
Speaker 1: Their two thousand and six self titled debut was a
Speaker 1: moving collection of lo fi songs built around Victoria's dreamy
Speaker 1: vocals and synth based loops, topped with Alex's lush guitar riffs.
Speaker 1: The songs have since been sampled by artists like Kendrick
Speaker 1: Lamar and The Weekend, and Kanye West even recently posted
Speaker 1: a picture of himself collaborating with them on Instagram. The
Speaker 1: band's new album debuted at number one, and it's their
Speaker 1: first entirely self produced album and also the most dynamic
Speaker 1: in scope. They tell Broken Record producer Lea Rose on
Speaker 1: today's episode about the inner workings of their unique creative partnership.
Speaker 1: They also talk about how the warmth of Bob Marley's
Speaker 1: music has directly inspired the band, and they explain why
Speaker 1: sometimes you have to just get over yourself for the
Speaker 1: sake of show business. This is broken record liner notes
Speaker 1: for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Lea Rose
Speaker 1: with Victoria La Grand and Alex Galley of Beach House.
Speaker 1: So thank you guys so much for doing this. I
Speaker 1: guess by the time this comes out, you guys are
Speaker 1: going to be back on the road, which must be
Speaker 1: super exciting hopefully and not terrifying. What's it been like
Speaker 1: being off the road during the pandemics. You guys have
Speaker 1: been on tour for like fifteen years straight, pretty much, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: it's been totally strange to not be out in the world,
Speaker 1: but I think everybody can relate to that. But touring
Speaker 1: has been a huge part of our career and you know,
Speaker 1: inspiration and all that stuff. So we're very excited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like humans are really inspiring, strangers are really inspiring, and
Speaker 1: like the situation of shows, both as playing and as
Speaker 1: in spectator is just so beautiful, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: been it's been I think everyone feels the way, it's
Speaker 1: been insane not having that as a regular part of
Speaker 1: life for two and a half years or three years,
Speaker 1: however long it's been that we've been in this fugue state.
Speaker 1: How are you thinking about the live show now that
Speaker 1: you're about to go back out with the new album out.
Speaker 1: Have you made any big changes to the show? We're
Speaker 1: kind of picking up where we left off from the
Speaker 1: seven tour because it was just such a what we
Speaker 1: really liked where the show, how it developed over the tour,
Speaker 1: So we're picking up there, and we just spent a
Speaker 1: lot of weeks actually in pre production with our whole crew.
Speaker 1: It was really really fun, and so yeah, it's basically
Speaker 1: an advanced level of the last show, but we've spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time because we didn't want it to
Speaker 1: have to develop on the road. We wanted it to
Speaker 1: be like the fully realized version of itself at show one.
Speaker 1: How do you guys get in the mood to play
Speaker 1: a show once you're out on tour and you're in
Speaker 1: the thick of it. If you wake up and you're
Speaker 1: just kind of feeling off, like physically off or mentally off,
Speaker 1: how do you get yourself in a place where you're
Speaker 1: ready to stand in front of a crowd and do
Speaker 1: what you have to do for an hour and forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. It's called you have to it's called grow up,
Speaker 1: it's called it's show business. It's called Look, it's not
Speaker 1: anyone else's fault. You stayed up till five in the morning.
Speaker 1: Get yourself together and do it. It's like you have
Speaker 1: a job, but it's not like a nine to five job.
Speaker 1: But it's a responsibility and you have, you know, worked
Speaker 1: your butt off to put this thing together. And we're
Speaker 1: lucky people who get to have people come, you know,
Speaker 1: see them, listen to them. Yeah, but just from like
Speaker 1: like the specifics point of view, you know, like one
Speaker 1: thing you have to remind yourself on the road, and
Speaker 1: we do remind ourselves of this is like, yes, this
Speaker 1: is your third show in a row, but this is
Speaker 1: the first time you've played in Cincinnati in five years.
Speaker 1: And clear and be in the moment and realize that
Speaker 1: this could be a special night for some of your
Speaker 1: fans who have never seen you before. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just like get out. It's like, go beyond yourself. It's
Speaker 1: not about you, you know. It's like that's what I
Speaker 1: was trying to say, is that it's it's a show
Speaker 1: and it's other people, you know, and it's not about you.
Speaker 1: And there is something like militaristic in the sense of
Speaker 1: like touring is. You know, you do like wear your
Speaker 1: body down and you do lose sleep, and you do
Speaker 1: like feel crazily destroyed at the end of it. But
Speaker 1: it should be because you gave all of yourself to people,
Speaker 1: and that's that's what it should be. Like. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and also you know, like we we listen to music,
Speaker 1: We have various things we do before the show to
Speaker 1: get into that, to get into the moment. You know,
Speaker 1: do you guys play the same show every night? Is
Speaker 1: it the same set list? No, we vary it for Sanity,
Speaker 1: Like it's just always been that way for us. And
Speaker 1: so you know, our set is usually about an hour
Speaker 1: forty five minutes, and that for us is usually between
Speaker 1: eighteen and twenty songs. And as the tour goes on,
Speaker 1: usually because we're still learning, the first week will be
Speaker 1: kind of similar sets, but then we start to really
Speaker 1: start peppering in deeper cuts. And we have a thing
Speaker 1: on our website called the set list Creator where you
Speaker 1: choose the date of the show you're going to and
Speaker 1: then you can enter your top three choices. Oh that's
Speaker 1: so cool. Yeah, And it was just something we've always
Speaker 1: wanted to do. And it's really fun because we consulted daily,
Speaker 1: and you know, obviously their songs will play most nights,
Speaker 1: but for like maybe like the deeper in our catalog song,
Speaker 1: we'll use that to find which song it should be
Speaker 1: for a given show. So I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the band's formative years. And you guys have been making
Speaker 1: music together now for close to twenty years. Well, we
Speaker 1: met in two thousand and four, and our first song
Speaker 1: was written in two thousand and five, so I guess
Speaker 1: about seventeen years. Seventeen years, I guess when you guys
Speaker 1: came together and formed the band. What was the original
Speaker 1: thought for the aesthetic of the band. I don't think
Speaker 1: we were going for an aesthetic. I think that our
Speaker 1: becoming a band was like really about two people who
Speaker 1: met each other and immediately started making music out of
Speaker 1: like necessity. I was introduced to Alex through a friend
Speaker 1: that I had met in college who was a musician
Speaker 1: who lived in Baltimore, and then I meet Alex and
Speaker 1: then pretty much from that moment start playing music with him,
Speaker 1: and then a couple months later, he and I are
Speaker 1: hanging out and we are like making Saltwater from the
Speaker 1: first which would be, you know, the first song we
Speaker 1: ever wrote together and also on the first record, So
Speaker 1: the aesthetic of what we're doing is not the first
Speaker 1: thing that happened. So this, this journey started because of
Speaker 1: you know, music first, and then as we made sounds
Speaker 1: and made songs, we started to discover the you know,
Speaker 1: the look of the first record. But but just just
Speaker 1: to like give you an idea of our creative process.
Speaker 1: So the sound of Beach House when we started was
Speaker 1: Victoria had two keyboards and she liked the way they sounded.
Speaker 1: Why did she find those keyboards? We don't. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like you're naturally drawn to things. They were nothing special.
Speaker 1: I had, you know, a guitar I was borrowing from someone,
Speaker 1: and these organs that I was collecting, and we used
Speaker 1: a four track tape machine, which I had been using
Speaker 1: since I was twelve years old. I like love four
Speaker 1: track tape machines. So we just had these things. They
Speaker 1: were our inherent interests and there was no like, I
Speaker 1: think we should sound like this, like there was no option.
Speaker 1: There was zero option of what we would sound like
Speaker 1: it was just like so natural and there was no
Speaker 1: like we're going to be a band, Like there was
Speaker 1: no forethought, no pretend, no vision. It was just just
Speaker 1: one foot going in front of the other and it
Speaker 1: felt very very natural. Yeah, it seems like that's the
Speaker 1: way that you make music as well. It's like you
Speaker 1: don't think about a project before you start it. A
Speaker 1: project just starts and then you just sort of keep
Speaker 1: up with a momentum and it evolves into what it
Speaker 1: evolves into. Yes, that's a good way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that it was natural how
Speaker 1: we started working together. But then I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the things we made were out of necessity too,
Speaker 1: because like we of what we had around us and
Speaker 1: it was all just kind of sitting right there. It's
Speaker 1: so telling like how you approach art, because if it
Speaker 1: were me, I feel like I would be so conscious
Speaker 1: of every single little thing and I would be like,
Speaker 1: you know, really thinking about the cover art, the name,
Speaker 1: the way the name looks in the font, Like everything
Speaker 1: would be so overly thought out. So it's so cool
Speaker 1: for me to hear that. It's like, oh, you just
Speaker 1: you have your instruments that you have access to two keyboards.
Speaker 1: That's all it is, and you sit there and it
Speaker 1: just happens. Yeah, it's that, but but we do pay
Speaker 1: a lot of attention to the details, like the fonts
Speaker 1: and the album art. So it's we're kind of two sides,
Speaker 1: you know. It's generated from within. Yeah, the whole universe
Speaker 1: of our esthetic, which is an interesting word, comes from
Speaker 1: the inside. It comes from the hearth, right, so like
Speaker 1: the heat that is inside of the thing that creates
Speaker 1: the music. And it started from the first record. It
Speaker 1: was like, okay, this music, how does this make us feel?
Speaker 1: That's how we got our band name. The word beach
Speaker 1: house came out and there were other words attached to
Speaker 1: it and other types of words, and we were floating
Speaker 1: them around, but it came from what is this feeling
Speaker 1: that we're creating. That's where we got beach House. And
Speaker 1: then it was you know, what are the colors are
Speaker 1: the what are the textures of this record? And the
Speaker 1: first record had all the jewels on the cover and
Speaker 1: like the tones and what was and then the font
Speaker 1: of the band name on that cover is my handwriting.
Speaker 1: I made that thing, and you know, and then every
Speaker 1: album since then has been the same type of process,
Speaker 1: Like we get our visual language from the music, and
Speaker 1: that isn't itself intentional because it's we're careful about it
Speaker 1: and extremely thoughtful sot the esthetic world and all the
Speaker 1: details and all the care comes from the music. I
Speaker 1: love hearing people try to describe your music, Like The
Speaker 1: New Yorker recently said that your music they describe it
Speaker 1: as twilight mysticism. Cool, and I'm just curious, like does
Speaker 1: that feel accurate? That feels like somebody was using language
Speaker 1: in a very creative and imaginative way, which is super
Speaker 1: exciting because twilight and light and that thing that the
Speaker 1: world gives to you as a human, Like we live
Speaker 1: in the world and all we have to do is
Speaker 1: look at it to get an infinite amount of inspiration.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I love that. I mean, that person is
Speaker 1: accessing that part of living where they see something and
Speaker 1: it makes them think about something larger. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if anyone who's not moved by twilight is
Speaker 1: essentially insane, because it's it's just it's like, so it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the world that we see all day long
Speaker 1: just becomes this incredibly beautiful place for a short amount
Speaker 1: of time, and it's just really really wonderful. What were
Speaker 1: some of like the foundational albums for you both, Like
Speaker 1: what were you listening to in high school? Like the
Speaker 1: first album where it's not something that's like playing in
Speaker 1: your parents' car or like an older sibling is listening to,
Speaker 1: it's like your album. Me and my like high school
Speaker 1: crew got really political, which was awesome, and like you know,
Speaker 1: it's like part of our the way we were like
Speaker 1: becoming adults informing our identity. But we got really into
Speaker 1: Bob Marley and just reggae in general, and I learned
Speaker 1: I learned every every baseline. I was a bassist first.
Speaker 1: I learned every baseline to every Bob Marley record at
Speaker 1: age fifteen or sixteen, and it was so huge to
Speaker 1: us and the political side of it, and it was
Speaker 1: so funny when I got to college, and it was
Speaker 1: shocking to me when I found out how a lot
Speaker 1: of people perceived Bob Marley as kind of playful, non
Speaker 1: serious music, because I had had such a like kind
Speaker 1: of like formative political relationship with it and found it
Speaker 1: so crucial to like my identity and various things, and
Speaker 1: found his calls to be so beautiful and worthy and yeah,
Speaker 1: and then just the sonic aspects of reggae and all
Speaker 1: of those Bob Marley records had a massive effect on
Speaker 1: the way I saw music and the way I heard
Speaker 1: it put together, and the warm tones mixed with the
Speaker 1: super serious message felt so powerful to me. Where did
Speaker 1: you go after reggae? Well, yeah, I mean that's just
Speaker 1: one step of things. But I also explored very heavily.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of ones that where I like learned every
Speaker 1: aspect of the music. I got really really into all
Speaker 1: the Stevie Wanda records from the seventies, the ones that
Speaker 1: he self produced. It's just such a great array of
Speaker 1: musicianship but great songwriting, and it's eclectic, and I mean
Speaker 1: those records are just incredible intervisions talking book songs in
Speaker 1: the key of life fulfilling. This is first finale that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And then Victoria, what about you? What
Speaker 1: were some foundational or just early albums that you really
Speaker 1: gravitated towards. You know, it's funny there. I think that
Speaker 1: this might be like one of the things that maybe
Speaker 1: when Alex and I like started making music, we didn't
Speaker 1: realize that we probably just we shared some total overlaps
Speaker 1: of what we were attracted to, because I was going
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, there's your childhood music, but
Speaker 1: then I think for the albums that you fall in
Speaker 1: love with when you're a teenager, really I think are
Speaker 1: some of the ones that profoundly affect you, you know,
Speaker 1: as the beginning of you becoming an adult. So like
Speaker 1: I was obviously into like Nirvana and Whole. I loved Whole.
Speaker 1: I still do too. I like Smashing Pumpkins, Um Siamese
Speaker 1: Siamese Dream is an amazing record. I also fell in love,
Speaker 1: you know, with somebody, your first like fall in love,
Speaker 1: and it was there was like rasta man vibration and
Speaker 1: you know, like just uh, that whole reggae world was
Speaker 1: part of my life too, and you know Rabbi Shankar
Speaker 1: and you know, like that song I Miss You. I
Speaker 1: mean there's so many albums, so yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: there's some there's some sharing of the glowing, warm, romantic, melodic,
Speaker 1: you know, the feelings all in this like kind of
Speaker 1: beautiful alchemy. What did you especially like about Whole About
Speaker 1: Courtney Love, I'm just curious. Um, just it's it's a power.
Speaker 1: It's just a powerful it's a powerful thing like if
Speaker 1: you're a young girl and you're listening to that, you're
Speaker 1: just like this, this woman, you know, this this like
Speaker 1: force of nature. Yeah, it's it's just like once you
Speaker 1: hear it, you're kind you're just not the same, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's there's a lot of artists that are like that.
Speaker 1: You know, Nirvana's like that, and you know, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people that once you hear hear them,
Speaker 1: you're not the same. Bob Marley yay, you know, um,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people that are you know,
Speaker 1: they just change you quickly. But yeah, her screaming, her voice,
Speaker 1: it's like there's just a unique quality to it. And
Speaker 1: also the music, the song is really great. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: songwriting is incredible. You know, live Through This is an
Speaker 1: incredible record. People are going to copy that for the
Speaker 1: rest of time, you know, and everything talk about aesthetics,
Speaker 1: I mean that whole thing is just like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: is an incredible force of inspiration. The baby doll, the makeup,
Speaker 1: the you know, and it's coming from punk and post
Speaker 1: punk and all that stuff, which also was a huge
Speaker 1: part of my upbringing. So there was a mixture of
Speaker 1: like the warm, gooey, the velvety layers, the velvet underground,
Speaker 1: and then there's also the reggae and then yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just a whole combo of things. That's that's how my
Speaker 1: brain works, the kind of all combines into one. It's
Speaker 1: all one album. Just kidding. We'll be right back with
Speaker 1: more from Leah Rose and Beach House. After a quick break,
Speaker 1: we're back with more from Beach House and Leah Rose.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about Victoria, about how you
Speaker 1: have evolved as a singer over the years. How would
Speaker 1: you say that your voice has changed as your career
Speaker 1: has progressed. There's a whole scientific way of talking about voice.
Speaker 1: That's one way of looking at it, and it's very factual,
Speaker 1: you know, like people's voices continue to change until they're
Speaker 1: like mid forties and then obviously past then. But in
Speaker 1: terms of like people who use their voices in specific ways,
Speaker 1: I have always when I start singing or I'm writing
Speaker 1: or all of that, I'm always just going from a
Speaker 1: place of what is comfortable to me. So it's not
Speaker 1: very like super self conscious. But there are definitely things
Speaker 1: that I like to do with my voice and the
Speaker 1: way that it sounds, and I work from just that
Speaker 1: in out world, you know, when I listen to my
Speaker 1: voice over in you know, the past and various Beach
Speaker 1: House albums like there are definitely like a range of
Speaker 1: vocal worlds all over the records, and I just feel
Speaker 1: like I continue to just kind of build on that,
Speaker 1: you know, and go with the float. But I do
Speaker 1: technically have classical training, and I you know, I don't
Speaker 1: lose my voice very often at all. For whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I don't have problems with that, probably just jinx to myself.
Speaker 1: Some singers do a lot of warm ups and you know,
Speaker 1: two hours, and I don't know how I can't do that.
Speaker 1: I'm very much like a shot of tequila, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's that's my warm up. Not to sound like
Speaker 1: I'm such a rocker, but that is a kind of
Speaker 1: my attitude with it too. Who were some of the
Speaker 1: first voices that you were really attracted to or really
Speaker 1: moved by early on in my life. I was attracted
Speaker 1: to Michael Jackson. I was attracted to musicals. I was
Speaker 1: attracted to the official fan of the opera musical, Sarah Brightman.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously everybody has loved Stevie Nicks. At some
Speaker 1: point I loved Chris Bell's voice, you know, in my twenties,
Speaker 1: I've loved Tom Petty's voice. I've loved a lot of
Speaker 1: male voices actually, and I'm you know, of course forgetting
Speaker 1: them now because it's the it's the video store effect
Speaker 1: where you go in and you're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what's my favorite movie? I don't know, was there a
Speaker 1: period of time when you started out where you were
Speaker 1: emulating other people's voice. I think that, like just very subconsciously.
Speaker 1: I think I was probably all the men I've ever
Speaker 1: listened to, like in my life, of any you know, artist,
Speaker 1: was probably like in my own abstract way, like embodying
Speaker 1: all of the male voices that I was either subjected
Speaker 1: to or like bombarded with or really loved. When you
Speaker 1: start doing something, you're kind of just processing all of
Speaker 1: your inspirations all in one kind of like if you okay,
Speaker 1: that's gonna this is a really crazy thing that just
Speaker 1: came into my head. But people who like make pasta,
Speaker 1: you know how like when pasta comes out in all
Speaker 1: of the holes and it's like all of the noodles,
Speaker 1: the desire to like make sound come out of your mouth,
Speaker 1: You're you're making something right, But then the all of
Speaker 1: the things you ever heard come out in all of
Speaker 1: those like strands, and that is your voice. Like your
Speaker 1: voice is like made up out of all of the
Speaker 1: things you've ever loved or been attracted to, like how
Speaker 1: hard you want to be or how soft you want
Speaker 1: to be, or like you want to be like a
Speaker 1: man and a woman. You know, you hear a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, even male artists today like that
Speaker 1: kind of like sing and then you kind of can't
Speaker 1: tell if it's a girl or not, you know, and
Speaker 1: that you know that's probably always existed. There are male
Speaker 1: singers who want to sound more like a woman, and
Speaker 1: there are female singers that don't want to sound like
Speaker 1: a and they want to sound more like a man.
Speaker 1: So it's just my descript my description of the pasta
Speaker 1: is is just more like about the shapes of things
Speaker 1: that are invisible. It's a pleasing image. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: the processing of like all that comes before and then
Speaker 1: the transference through something and becoming like multiple things. Was
Speaker 1: there a moment when you knew that you found your voice?
Speaker 1: It seems like a really really hard place to get to,
Speaker 1: But do you remember when you sort of realize like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is me. I mean I honestly think that, like
Speaker 1: when Alex and I made Saltwater, like the very first song, Like,
Speaker 1: I do feel like the beginning of me and like
Speaker 1: my identity as a singer definitely is in the first album.
Speaker 1: But everybody's albums that come before them, they're younger. It's
Speaker 1: that Mitch Hedberg joke, like what is this is a
Speaker 1: picture of me when I was younger? It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: every picture of you is you when you were younger,
Speaker 1: and so every album is you when you were younger.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that it started right at the beginning.
Speaker 1: I feel like there just was the desire and the
Speaker 1: you know, the four track and the you know, the
Speaker 1: crappiness and just the kind of like innocence. Do you
Speaker 1: revisit the old albums ever? I mean, I know you're
Speaker 1: you're playing songs when you're on tour, but do you
Speaker 1: ever sit down with the old albums, listen to them
Speaker 1: and sort of like think about them and how they
Speaker 1: sort of like fit into your evolution as a band.
Speaker 1: That To be very honest, no, we don't sit and
Speaker 1: listen to our albums because we kind of know what
Speaker 1: we did, and so it's like it's it's in there somewhere,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're the things we like and they're
Speaker 1: things we don't like, and we just kind of move on.
Speaker 1: But every once in a while we'll hear our songs somewhere, like,
Speaker 1: you know, years ago we heard a song from the
Speaker 1: very first record and I didn't even you know, people
Speaker 1: are talking and it was a dark, crowded bar. Didn't
Speaker 1: recognize ourselves. And sometimes that's a really cool moment where
Speaker 1: you hear something that you did and for a brief
Speaker 1: few moments, you just don't. You go out of your
Speaker 1: body and you're not you anymore and you're just you're
Speaker 1: hearing your thing for the thing that you made it
Speaker 1: the way other people hear it. Did you like it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I did and at first, and it made
Speaker 1: me revisit a song that I hadn't looked at on
Speaker 1: a record. It was I think it was Home again
Speaker 1: from the first album, second album. See this is this
Speaker 1: is a proof of memory not working from the first record.
Speaker 1: Um it's from devotion. So yeah, it made us. It
Speaker 1: made me made me revisit it, not the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but that song, So that that does happen. But sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just a song and like or you'll see something
Speaker 1: like on the internet or something and I'll be like,
Speaker 1: oh that song. Oh and then you remember that or
Speaker 1: you listen to it. But as far as listening to
Speaker 1: a whole album, I think we'd have to get pretty
Speaker 1: drunk for that, well, like just just to like, you know,
Speaker 1: lighten the fact that it just brings a lot of
Speaker 1: I think it. You know, nostalgia is a really crazy thing.
Speaker 1: All humans experience it, and it feels like almost sickening.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're with like a friend and you
Speaker 1: can't stop thinking about the beautiful moments that passed. It
Speaker 1: feels it's like it's like trapp like you want to
Speaker 1: keep going there, but then it's dark because it's not
Speaker 1: life anymore. Brings to mind the Great Gadsby, you know,
Speaker 1: like what do you mean you can't repeat the past?
Speaker 1: Of course you can that urge that we all have
Speaker 1: to go back, but it's never coming back, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's there's this thing that like there's it's a
Speaker 1: scary place to go revisit your past self because you
Speaker 1: can get lost in dark things. Was I better than
Speaker 1: was I? Was I more purer was I, or or
Speaker 1: even the opposite thing, I was terrible, Like I can't
Speaker 1: believe we put this out, you know, like things like
Speaker 1: there's just so many scary feelings that can come back.
Speaker 1: I think having too much self awareness. There's the there's
Speaker 1: the good kind of self awareness, like you know, am
Speaker 1: I being kind? Am I? Kind? Am I? You know?
Speaker 1: But then there's the bad self awareness that could be crippling.
Speaker 1: And if you're too self conscious, then you won't be
Speaker 1: able to move forward, you won't be able to plunge
Speaker 1: into something new. You'll just be so mentally conscious of
Speaker 1: I did this, and then this, and this is what
Speaker 1: I look like and and then you're just like trapped
Speaker 1: in your own hell. And I think the whole idea
Speaker 1: is that it's about risk taking. Yeah, and it doesn't.
Speaker 1: And it's not about like I made this huge risk
Speaker 1: and I it's it's like risks can be really small moments,
Speaker 1: you know, It's like a small little pivot and there
Speaker 1: you went, you know, and you just let go. And
Speaker 1: I think it's just like you did the past, You
Speaker 1: did the things, but you let them go. And putting
Speaker 1: out a record is that it's like at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, like we decided that it is finished
Speaker 1: and it is gone, and you know, the release date
Speaker 1: comes and it's like the bird flies out of the cage,
Speaker 1: is freed and hopefully you know, it was a beautiful bird.
Speaker 1: It was an intense bird. You know, it required a
Speaker 1: lot of like special seeds and flowers and things. But
Speaker 1: it's got to go. And that is a small movement,
Speaker 1: but it is a large liberating one. And I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of a way we've been rolling. Is that
Speaker 1: process at the very end a tough one. Does It
Speaker 1: take a lot of time and thought and energy and
Speaker 1: sort of like an executive call to be like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're calling it. This is the end of the album.
Speaker 1: It's done. The end stage of an album is like
Speaker 1: the most difficult one because it is like the the
Speaker 1: labor that lasts an under You know, you don't know
Speaker 1: how long it's gonna last, but you know that you
Speaker 1: want it to get out, and it's it can be
Speaker 1: quite painful, quite challenging. You can become sick of yourself
Speaker 1: and sick of and board or whatever the thing. So
Speaker 1: it's it's the hardest one, but you really it's it
Speaker 1: takes endurance and commitment, and you just and belief and
Speaker 1: just face a lot of faith because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like moments where you've been working eight hours and
Speaker 1: you go, I hate it, I hate this. This is terrible,
Speaker 1: and you have to know that it's just your brain
Speaker 1: just like malfunctioning, and you have to you know, get
Speaker 1: through to the next day, wake up with a fresh mind,
Speaker 1: and start again. You know, it's like kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it's just so intense, but but really beautiful. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: try to make the best out of what you can
Speaker 1: do and work on something a little bit every day,
Speaker 1: and then with time, maybe it'll grow into a you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it'll grow into a beautiful flower. You never know.
Speaker 1: It might take it might take three days, it might
Speaker 1: take six months, it might take fifteen years, and it
Speaker 1: might take your entire life to make the thing that
Speaker 1: you maybe are the most proud of. Cool and The
Speaker 1: New Yorker called the new album your most ambitious and dynamic.
Speaker 1: Is that something that you agree with? Thank you New
Speaker 1: Yorker for saying that it's nice. It's nice to hear.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that's a fair assessment. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's just you know, we we try to
Speaker 1: have it be this really big, open world that you
Speaker 1: could really enter and get lost in. So I think
Speaker 1: in that desire there is some more ambition than perhaps
Speaker 1: or is that what is that what they said? Ambitious,
Speaker 1: dynamic and ambitious. Yeah, so I think the dynamic refers
Speaker 1: to there's a lot of different song types like there are, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got really into production. It's just I think this
Speaker 1: is a representation of the skills we've developed over many
Speaker 1: years and perhaps like a beginning of like pushing more
Speaker 1: in various ways. So you know, to hear the words dynamic,
Speaker 1: to hear the words ambitious, those are true. You know,
Speaker 1: we were like very ambitious about the quantity of songs
Speaker 1: we started with, and you know, once we started it,
Speaker 1: there were times maybe we were like in over our heads,
Speaker 1: but we kept we kept going, And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, ambition is tricky because it starts you off,
Speaker 1: but then you there's a sense of like completing what
Speaker 1: you've started and you don't know where you're going to
Speaker 1: end up. So I think that we are They're not
Speaker 1: wrong about describing it that way. We're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be back with more from
Speaker 1: Beach House we're back with the rest of Leah Rose's
Speaker 1: conversation with Beach House. How do you guys feel about
Speaker 1: interviews generally? Do you kind of like dread it or like,
Speaker 1: what's the overall feeling? Just curious? The overall feeling is
Speaker 1: a it's not something we take for granted. It's it's
Speaker 1: very like, you know, the best interviews are a conversation.
Speaker 1: You are a little awkward at the beginning, and then
Speaker 1: you kind of warm up and then you're you're flowing together.
Speaker 1: I think the hardest part about interviews is the and
Speaker 1: not all of them, but sometimes when you're you've made
Speaker 1: something like a record over three years, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: suddenly you the artist, are like, Okay, well, how will
Speaker 1: I explain in like a couple of sentences years of
Speaker 1: my life? That's the hardest part. I think it's like
Speaker 1: how to articulate hours, days, months, years of like like
Speaker 1: the worst day of your life or the you know,
Speaker 1: the best day, And I don't know how to I
Speaker 1: don't say package it, but how to how to relay that,
Speaker 1: how to convey that and not feel like you're leaving
Speaker 1: out something that is crucial you know that somebody would
Speaker 1: find interesting but we're very lucky to be doing interviews
Speaker 1: and very grateful. Yeah, I mean, I think that we
Speaker 1: cherish it because you know, we just we don't take
Speaker 1: it for granted and we're grateful that people care at all.
Speaker 1: And but but I think we also take it take
Speaker 1: it as an opportunity to hopefully clarify some of our
Speaker 1: thoughts and visions for some people who might care. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we necessarily see it as like like
Speaker 1: an exposure thing, just because we're not that commercially driven.
Speaker 1: But we see it as a chance for more creativity
Speaker 1: and cool things to happen, you know, And there are
Speaker 1: there are artists who and like you know, every artist
Speaker 1: has the right to decide like how they're going to
Speaker 1: relay or describe their career or their art that they make.
Speaker 1: Some people don't like to do them at all. And
Speaker 1: for us, we're not really comfortable with not doing interviews
Speaker 1: at all because we think that for what our for
Speaker 1: how we are as people, we don't want to be cold,
Speaker 1: and we're not cold, and we don't want to block
Speaker 1: people out. We want to have a conversation. And it is,
Speaker 1: like Alex said, an interview is an opportunity to explain,
Speaker 1: you know, and it is it is an opportunity and
Speaker 1: it's best form to like clarify things and to like
Speaker 1: if there was something, you know, let's pretend that there
Speaker 1: was something like a rumor, right or somebody was like this,
Speaker 1: this person did this thing. If you didn't do interviews
Speaker 1: and you just were like living on social media, you're
Speaker 1: not able to like defend yourself or something. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't. You're just kind of like out there and
Speaker 1: then other people are writing about you or you know,
Speaker 1: or you're like publicly feuding through words that people are seeing.
Speaker 1: But an interview is a conversation and you can get
Speaker 1: through any kind of like disagreement or confusion, but in
Speaker 1: a peaceful way. And I mean it's I think that
Speaker 1: every single person in the world, individual artist, it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter, I think, once to control the narrative of
Speaker 1: who they are, you know, so just in like a
Speaker 1: very natural way, Like if you see yourself represented in
Speaker 1: a certain way, you want to say, well, that's not
Speaker 1: who I am. I know who I am, you know,
Speaker 1: So I think that but that's just a part of life.
Speaker 1: It can't be avoided. But I think being able to
Speaker 1: control our narrative through our honesty is also something that
Speaker 1: we enjoy. It seems difficult, though, especially when you're talking
Speaker 1: about your creative process, because it seemed like we were
Speaker 1: sort of talking about earlier, like if you're not really
Speaker 1: intellectualizing creativity, then it's like what is there really to
Speaker 1: talk about? In some way, it's true and in a
Speaker 1: certain regard, and there are people who are like really good.
Speaker 1: I've heard other people's interviews and they're so good at
Speaker 1: like intellectualizing what they do and it's really interesting. And
Speaker 1: they have like, you know, a million books and they
Speaker 1: remember all the lines of poems they read that like
Speaker 1: had a huge impact on them. And their voices are great,
Speaker 1: and they're you know, like they're speaking, voices are great,
Speaker 1: and it's like you're just in their brain and their world.
Speaker 1: But I think we're more like children who have, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of intense feelings were adults. But we also
Speaker 1: have huge, huge kids inside of us, you know, and
Speaker 1: we think about what we do, but we also are
Speaker 1: kind of just super instinctual, a little impatient and forgetful,
Speaker 1: like we do like not remember every single moment that
Speaker 1: had a profound impact on us. It's almost impossible. It's
Speaker 1: like in order to live, you kind of just have
Speaker 1: to live and like break through the walls, and like
Speaker 1: I can't write everything down, and I wish I had
Speaker 1: a better memory. I really do. And just like another
Speaker 1: way of thinking of interviews, I just thought of this,
Speaker 1: you know, like your first question, what were you guys
Speaker 1: going for when you made your first record, and our
Speaker 1: answer of we weren't going for anything. We were just
Speaker 1: being ourselves and letting whatever was there come out. If
Speaker 1: one person listens to this and that changes their artistic approach,
Speaker 1: then the interview was completely worth it. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: with the new album Once Twice Melody, you released it
Speaker 1: in four chapters. How did that all sort of take shape? Generally,
Speaker 1: when we, you know, are finished a previous record and
Speaker 1: we're starting into a new world of things were inspired
Speaker 1: by we have a lot of little things laying around,
Speaker 1: their little blips recorded here or there. So this time
Speaker 1: we had a ton of these little things, maybe thirty,
Speaker 1: and we just naturally started working on them and having
Speaker 1: them evolve into the into various songs. So it was
Speaker 1: so much material, more than we're used to having. And
Speaker 1: somewhere along the way it became the twenty two best songs,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and we were working on them
Speaker 1: steadily over a couple of years, and as we started
Speaker 1: getting closer to the vision of the whole record. At
Speaker 1: one point we went to narrow it down to like
Speaker 1: a normal record length, maybe you know, forty five minutes
Speaker 1: or something like that, by choosing just the best I'm
Speaker 1: doing air quotes, the best songs. But when we did
Speaker 1: when we did that, it didn't feel like the record anymore.
Speaker 1: It didn't have the facets that delivered the vision, and
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like a true measure of the kind
Speaker 1: of artistic space we were in. So that's when we
Speaker 1: started to think, oh, this is a double LP, which
Speaker 1: we've never done before, and that was really exciting to us.
Speaker 1: So as we started to refine that and start and
Speaker 1: try to make sequencing is something that's very very important
Speaker 1: to us, and we spend a long time on sequencing.
Speaker 1: As we started to make the sequence, we started really
Speaker 1: thinking of it in record sides, because we're big Vinyl fans,
Speaker 1: so we started thinking, Okay, side A, side B, side C,
Speaker 1: side D and thinking of it as that, and when
Speaker 1: you do that, you want each one to be between
Speaker 1: eighteen and twenty two minutes long for sound quality, so
Speaker 1: that these became the kind of navigating limitations, and we
Speaker 1: started to think of each side as having a start
Speaker 1: and an end, and then once you had to start
Speaker 1: in the end, you sort of filled in the middle,
Speaker 1: and these kind of certain these kind of individual little
Speaker 1: stories came out of it. And then that one day
Speaker 1: became the chapter idea. Oh, let's call them chapters because
Speaker 1: it's it's very interesting and that it was all evolving
Speaker 1: at the same time, so okay, So that came first,
Speaker 1: so that we eventually had our songs selected and these
Speaker 1: chapters selected, and then later on we had the idea,
Speaker 1: because of streaming being the dominant way that people listen
Speaker 1: to music, now, oh just let's release them one at
Speaker 1: a time, so it almost feels like a periodical in
Speaker 1: the roll up to the final physical release. And it
Speaker 1: just felt really exciting to us, and it felt like
Speaker 1: it was also true to the development of the record
Speaker 1: in a way. Yeah, I've seen some other groups have
Speaker 1: been doing that too, like Brockhampton did that Denzel Curry,
Speaker 1: where people are putting out projects and sort of like
Speaker 1: chunks instead of one full project is after it like
Speaker 1: people's attention spans, Like what's the thinking Like as far
Speaker 1: as streaming platforms, the streaming allows you to put the
Speaker 1: music out quickly, quickly, and it allows you more liberty
Speaker 1: so you don't have to wait as long. The other
Speaker 1: thing is that we don't see them as chunks like EPs,
Speaker 1: even though like Spotify says EP, we don't think of
Speaker 1: it as EP. But there's no like chapter word for
Speaker 1: that platform or side. You know, every platform, Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 1: they all have different little things they can provide for you,
Speaker 1: and they're not you know, they're not doing it the
Speaker 1: same way. So this was just really about being more
Speaker 1: creative and more filmic and more cinematic and more literary
Speaker 1: and all that. So it's just been yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: Alex's explanation is great, but there's also the side to
Speaker 1: it where it's just kind of something we've always wanted
Speaker 1: to just be able to put something out and this
Speaker 1: was one way of being able to do that. Was
Speaker 1: this the first album that you guys produced, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it's not the first one we've produced, because we've been
Speaker 1: essentially producing Beach House from the beginning. Not to sound totally,
Speaker 1: but that is the truth and We have worked with producers,
Speaker 1: but our relationship with them has always felt like like
Speaker 1: Chris Cody or Sonic Boom. It's it's the feeling is
Speaker 1: co production because there they have their own skill sets
Speaker 1: and their wisdom and there and we get things from them.
Speaker 1: But ultimately I do feel like we've always been at
Speaker 1: the helm. Well yeah, I mean like just from like
Speaker 1: a like a logistics standpoint, we've no one has ever
Speaker 1: had influence on our arrangements, the instruments we use, the
Speaker 1: arrangements of the songs, the lyrics, the sounds, it's all
Speaker 1: completely ours and we never wanted anyone to have any
Speaker 1: say on that kind of stuff, you know. So production
Speaker 1: has always been something that comes in right at the
Speaker 1: end and just really helps us get across the finish
Speaker 1: line because it's just having another voice, another person there
Speaker 1: is really helpful and really lovely, and so us producing
Speaker 1: by ourselves this time wasn't so much a like definitive choice.
Speaker 1: It maybe would have happened without the pandemic, but it
Speaker 1: was also like the pandemic was like, look, no one
Speaker 1: can travel, no one can get in a plane. Just
Speaker 1: just do it ourselves. The best part about working with
Speaker 1: other people is like the contributions that they bring to
Speaker 1: you that are their own, things that you would never
Speaker 1: think of, right. So, like it's little, it's like we
Speaker 1: don't want to be told things by somebody about things
Speaker 1: we deeply know and we're not going to mess with,
Speaker 1: you know, like for example, like the arrangement of something,
Speaker 1: or the lyrics or like like Alex said, there's things
Speaker 1: that are not quite up for question, right. But the
Speaker 1: times we've worked with other people, you know, great things
Speaker 1: came out of those little moments because they brought something
Speaker 1: that we did not and could not do ourselves. And
Speaker 1: that's the best moment in like working with a producer
Speaker 1: or co produce, you know, whatever you want to call
Speaker 1: and however you want to use the word produce whatever
Speaker 1: that means. It means something different to every artist because
Speaker 1: some people don't know at all what they're doing and
Speaker 1: they need help, and so it's just everybody's different. But
Speaker 1: our best times with other people have been where we
Speaker 1: didn't think of it ourselves. And thank you for that help,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for teaching us about this new
Speaker 1: new microphone or new like gear. You know, like Sonic
Speaker 1: Boom has an incredible life experience and knowledge and made
Speaker 1: beautiful records and was such a wonderful person to work
Speaker 1: with on seven, you know. And Chris Cody the years
Speaker 1: we spent with him, you know, he's amazing at recording.
Speaker 1: It's just you get knowledge from people, and that's the
Speaker 1: most beautiful part of working with somebody else. It's less
Speaker 1: about like the producing that they do. It's more about
Speaker 1: like the the energy and the information and the knowledge
Speaker 1: that they bestow. So it would be sort of like
Speaker 1: choices about gear and possibly choices about performance. Is that
Speaker 1: how it would work, Like when you're working with another producer,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like smaller and like more like instantaneous
Speaker 1: things that occur, like oh we should use like I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think honestly, it's hard to sum it
Speaker 1: all up. Every record is really really different, you know,
Speaker 1: so we'd have to go record by record. I mean,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a producer on our first two records.
Speaker 1: So actually, that thing in our bio is wrong. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those sentences. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: sentences we wrote and like we probably should have just
Speaker 1: like not written duh or something, you know. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: also but also the word producer is another one of
Speaker 1: these words. Produced or a producer is one of these
Speaker 1: giant words that means something different for everyone and for
Speaker 1: every situation. So it's kind of an annoying. It's an
Speaker 1: annoying word not because producers are annoying, but because it's
Speaker 1: very confusing what you're talking about exactly. Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: always interested what goes on in what a producer actually does,
Speaker 1: And I know there's a whole range, Like in hip hop,
Speaker 1: a producer is just is the person making the beat.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's it's different in every genre, or I
Speaker 1: think it's the world by the genre. I think it's
Speaker 1: just it's just down to the person and to the situation.
Speaker 1: It's different. You know, there should be other ones like um,
Speaker 1: you know cha chair sitter, food bringer. Sometimes like the
Speaker 1: best thing a producer can do is nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: like recognizing that they don't have anything to offer and
Speaker 1: something's already perfect, you know, rather than having like an
Speaker 1: ego and thinking they have to add something. You know.
Speaker 1: So it's like the role that is played is even
Speaker 1: different down to the minute. And I think that is
Speaker 1: probably like our best combo with a person with the
Speaker 1: P word would be like they're either going to be
Speaker 1: confirming something we already know or like enabling us to
Speaker 1: have Yes, you guys are right, you should probably do that.
Speaker 1: Like so you know, it's just that little bit of
Speaker 1: a bouncing board, and I think that's the best. I
Speaker 1: think we could probably just leave it at that, Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's the best way it works for us.
Speaker 1: The P word, the P word. Well, thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time for talking. It was
Speaker 1: so much fun. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Thanks the beach Outs for breaking down their
Speaker 1: creative partnership and the inspiration behind their new double album,
Speaker 1: Once Twice Melody. You can hear the new album and
Speaker 1: all of our favorite Beach House songs on my playlist
Speaker 1: at broken record podcast dot com. He should a subscribe
Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken
Speaker 1: record Podcast, where we can find all of our new episodes.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced a helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Bent, Holiday,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chaffey.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Minia Lobell. Broken Record is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and
Speaker 1: others from pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus
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Speaker 1: us on your podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond.