WEBVTT - The Musical Mind of Hrishikesh Hirway 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.280 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:10.480 Thing from iHeart Radio. Few people illuminate the art of 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:15.320 music and storytelling like my guest today, Rishi Kish Hereway 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.520 didn't set out to become one of the biggest podcasters 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.880 in the world, but that's precisely what happened when he 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:27.200 created the Song Exploder podcast in twenty fourteen. In addition 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:32.800 to podcast host, Hereway is a composer, record producer, and artist. 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.559 His latest album, In the Last Hour of Light, will 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:41.159 be released April twenty fourth. Along with Song Exploder, Hereway 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.920 is the creator of the podcast partners The West Wing 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.360 Weekly and the award winning Home Cooking with Chef and 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:54.040 co host Samine Nosrats. As a composer, Hereway has penned 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:58.800 the scores for feature films and documentaries, a Netflix TV series, 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.480 and a video game. His music has appeared on hit 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.720 TV shows like Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill. Here 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.960 Way has a gift for tapping into the cultural zeitgeist 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.039 and drawing out the creative spark from some of the 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.039 world's best musicians. I asked Rishie to be my guest 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.600 for a live taping at The Wife Hotel in Brooklyn 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:24.240 for on AirFest. Growing up in an Indian household, I 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.640 was curious how Hereway's childhood shaped his cultural world view 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:30.959 and how we first connected with music. 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.679 Well, I have an older sister, Priya, and she's five 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.600 years older than me, So I really inherited so much 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.320 of my taste from her, and that basically meant listening 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.000 to top forty radio. You know, she went to school 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:45.959 and she found out what was cool from other friends, 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:48.880 and so we just listened to whatever she was listening to. 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.000 The first time that I got to actually make music 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.440 choices of my own was when she got a Columbia 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.280 House subscription. You know, you send in a penny and 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.600 they send you back eight cassettes, and she very generous 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:06.160 origin Yeah exactly. Yeah, she generously allowed me to pick two. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.679 She gave me two of her eight selections, and so 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:15.480 I picked Aerosmith Permanent Vacation and White Snake by White Snake. 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.200 So music is in your life and then you start 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.320 to make music. You played the piano. 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.400 I played piano growing up, Yeah, just taking piano lessons, 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:25.560 and then I started playing in the school band. And 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.400 then when I got to high school, I started playing 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:27.960 in bands. 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:28.799 Did you play in the school band? 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.240 Drums, keyboard? But then I was in the percussion department 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.320 and everybody else it was me and six boys who 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.880 played the drum kit, but there's only one drum kit 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.399 to share, and everybody else played either a snare drum 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.799 or a bass drum. And eventually, when everybody else went home, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.800 I would start sitting behind the drum kit myself, and 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.000 then I got really excited about playing drums. And so 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.080 then in high school I started playing drums in a band. 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:52.600 What were you good at? 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.600 I don't know that I was or am good at anything. 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.240 I feel like I was like pretty good at some 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.240 of the things, you know, like guitar. I played, learned 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:03.919 to play guitar, I learned to play piano, I learned 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.520 to play drums, and I was like okay at all 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:06.880 of those. 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.919 And then when do you start making music that you're 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:11.720 going to sell? 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.200 Well, I started writing my own songs at the end 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.240 of high school and then starting into the beginning of college. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.080 Selling it was still far from my mind, but just 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:22.880 writing it was the first step. 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.240 Before you get into the podcast world, where a lot 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.080 of us in an in depth analysis and examination of 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.560 other people's music, which is thrilling you play music, and 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.960 when does that When do you decide that's not where 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.240 you want to go, Because at some point you start 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:38.760 making enough money you live off. 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:39.560 Of the music business. 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.640 Yeah, that's right, Yeah, describe that period. So I think 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:44.600 in two thousand and seven was the first year that 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.560 I felt like I could say that I made music 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.320 as my living. I'd put out an album that year, 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.800 and I produced an album for another band, and I 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.600 actually was able to pay my bills just through music. 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.440 I didn't have to have, you know, my freelance graphic 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.280 design job or temping or anything like that. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:02.440 You live fairly comfortably. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:04.839 I mean it was comfortable for me. That was a 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.240 pretty big milestone for me. That felt like it's hard 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.600 to grow up in an Indian household and say I 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.560 want to be a musician. And I think my parents 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.920 never understood the sort of validators that I turned to. 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.240 It would be hard to say like, hey, look this 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.800 is going okay. You know, like I could say to 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.600 my mom, it's an A point one on Pitchfork and 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.440 she'd be like, I know those are all words, but 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.360 I don't know what any of them mean together. 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:32.920 I'm glad that means something to you. 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.719 So being able to actually like make my living from music, 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:40.240 that was the first way that I was able to 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.960 sort of say to my family, Look, this is this 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:43.880 is turning out okay. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:44.640 You know. 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.839 It was a leap of faith for them to, you know, 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.240 even just understand that this is what I was doing. 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.760 Between twenty twenty and twenty eleven, those nine years, you 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:55.400 released four albums. 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:56.440 Two thousand and twenty eleven. 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:58.960 Yeah, and so pick one album and tell me what's 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:00.760 the process of getting that made. 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.680 So I always made my music kind of like in 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.520 my bedroom wherever that was, and I would write the 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.560 songs and sort of record them as I was writing 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.120 them and sort of try and design into whatever the 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.400 song was about, adding layers, you know, one at a time, 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.560 and it would take sometimes months and sometimes years before 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.200 I felt like it was it was done, and then 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.440 once I had enough of them for an album, then 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.039 that would be the album. It took a very long time, 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.200 and I would sometimes bring other people in, but for 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:29.760 the most part I tried to do as much of 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:30.680 it on my own. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.640 Hurry down on dirty Yeah, and then when it's old 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.359 together the elements are together, where do you take it 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:37.320 who do you take it to? 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.520 Well, the first couple albums came out on like a 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.760 punk rock label, even though the music wasn't punk rock. 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:44.960 I kind of came up in a sort of we 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.120 need content. I came up listening to punk, and a 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.400 lot of my friends who were in bands played in 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.360 punk bands, and so that was kind of my community. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.720 I would play like these basement punk shows as the 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.440 weird outlier, you know, just just a sad boy with 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.039 a guitar in between these screamy bands. But because of 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.640 that I got to meet some folks, including someone who 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:07.599 had a record label who said, I like your records 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:09.159 and I'd like to put them out, and so I 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:10.800 did that for a first couple and then when I 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.919 moved to La I signed with like an independent label 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:14.719 based there. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.240 Your new album is called in the Last Hour of 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:19.520 Late and when's it coming out? 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:20.440 It comes out in April. 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.400 This is your piece at you all the eight tracks, 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:24.239 ten tracks, whatever. 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.359 No, So this one is very different from how I 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:28.440 used to make music. For this one, I sort of 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:32.200 went the completely opposite direction, and it's recorded live with 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:34.400 the band and sort of in a much more kind 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:38.160 of classic way, went into a studio, played with some 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.640 amazing musicians and taught them the songs in the morning, 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.600 and then we'd work on the arrangement and then we'd 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:46.880 record it, and then we'd break for lunch and then 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:48.680 do another song in the afternoon. 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:51.400 The Beatles would say that, Yeah. 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.279 The Beatles would say, we would go into the studio 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.880 and we'd record four songs in the morning. Then they go, 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.080 he goes, then we go have a cigarette and it 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.040 pints and maybe some fish and chips, that we record 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.320 four songs in the afternoon. Yeah, they make an album 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:05.640 in a day. 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.680 Yeah, Well I had seven days and it was so 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.040 completely contrary to how I had worked the rest of 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:16.239 my music making life. I said to the producer Phil Weinrob, 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.320 I said, this is crazy. This is a crazy way 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.720 to make music. And he said no, actually, most music 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.240 in the history of recorded music was made this way. 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.400 The way that you've been making it is crazy. 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:28.440 So in your music. 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.760 Career pre Song Exploder, I'm assuming that One Tree Hill 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:34.880 and Gossip Girl that came before Song Exploder. 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:36.120 Yes, how do you get your music? 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.600 The thing about you was it seems like every door 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.720 just opens to you. You know, how do you get 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:44.400 your music in front of the one Tree Hill people. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.640 Gossip World was a huge hit. How do you get 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:47.240 in front of them? 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.720 I mean, especially in those days, in the sort of 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.840 heyday of indie music on TV, you know, kind of 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.240 like two thousand and five to twenty ten or so, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:58.640 it was really wonderful because there were a lot of 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.680 shows on TV. TV still existed, music budgets still existed, 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.120 and they would actively have this mission to put cool 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.720 music in shows. And so there were music supervisors who'd 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.200 be actively looking for something that they liked to include. 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.400 And I got very lucky the label that I was on, 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.720 they had folks who would send the music to music 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.760 supervisors and yeah they were so they were were always 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.040 looking for music. Yeah, yeah, and they'd be putting you know, 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.240 they put out twenty four episodes of Gossip Girl and 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.120 then have like five or six songs in each episode. 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:32.760 So the first thing I want to ask you is, 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:34.959 per song explorer, how do you get the rights to 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.680 the music? Oh, even when we do the show and 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.200 we want heavy with music, we struggle. We think the 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:43.240 artists is on our side and they're going to help us, 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:44.960 and it's like, are the people that have the rights. 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:51.040 No, Yeah, the artist has no power or very little power. Occasionally, Yeah, well, 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.800 I work with a wonderful woman named Kathleen Smith who 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.000 has been working with me since twenty fifteen, and she 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.600 goes and knocks on all the doors and asks everybody 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.920 you know, would you please sign this piece of paper 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.560 that says we can use this song with song Exploder. 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:08.800 It's a little bit different, I think than other uses 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:13.640 because it's not like the music is scoring some other content. 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.080 The music is the content. You know, we're telling the 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:17.160 story of this song. 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:18.440 Gotta have it your license. 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.000 Yeah, I'm wondering you check out the right situation prior 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.240 to the show. They don't come on unless you're all 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:24.960 clear with the music. 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.920 At this point, we sort of hope in you know, 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.760 feel like we've got relationships enough that like we can 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.080 tape the interview and the end as we're working on 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:35.880 the licensing at the same time, but we won't put 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:37.520 it out till it's all cleared. 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.560 Song Exploder whose idea was that it. 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:43.960 Was, you know, something that kind of had percolated over 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.319 a very long time, just the idea of trying to 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.880 make something that felt closer to what the music making 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.720 process was as I had experienced it. You know, I 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.080 would listen to or read interviews with artists that I admire, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.680 and the interviews always felt like they were very big picture, 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.240 Like the interviewers would ask big picture questions and the 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:09.120 guests would answer in big picture answers. But I felt 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.800 like the creative process is so much more about the 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.000 inch by inch journey. You know, every single small creative 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.920 decision that gets made is really what shapes both the 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.960 final product and the experience. And I thought it would 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.640 be really fascinating if people could get inside that process 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.080 and hear what a song sounds like from the perspective 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.640 of someone who made it. Also, I wanted to kind 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.199 of circumvent the idea of a critic being the only 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.800 way into how a song could be thought of and 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.680 kind of re establish the idea of an author's intention. 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.120 How did you develop the skill to help them unravel 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:47.640 the song? 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.800 Well, I think it helps to have someone ask questions 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.360 from a sort of empathetic position, you know, like I 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.199 tried to bring the kinds of questions that I was 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.560 trying to answer to the questions that I would be 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.840 posing to them. And part of the reason why I 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:06.880 used to cut myself out of the show entirely was 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.319 because I had never interviewed anybody, and I didn't want 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.760 to reveal myself to be the amateur that I was, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.240 And I thought it would sound much more professional if 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.920 it just felt like a story being told from the 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.360 perspective of the artist. The reason it changed in the 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:22.680 Netflix show is because I got that idea that, you know, 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.520 the sort of non narrated thing which exists in so 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.480 much radio, But I got it from watching documentary films. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:34.040 In the best documentary films, you just see the cameras on, 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:36.560 you know, close up on the subject, and they're telling 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.280 their story. You don't hear an interviewer. Sometimes you might 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.480 hear them off camera, but it's never about the two 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.000 of them. So I wanted my show to feel legitimate, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.880 even though I was making it from my bedroom or 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.280 my garage. I wanted it to seem like, oh, elevated, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.280 So let me make it like these documentaries. When we 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.360 went to make the Netflix show, I was talking to 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.319 the executive producer, Morgan Neville, who himself is an Oscar 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.080 winning documentarium four twenty Free from Stardom. 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.520 We played that at the Hampton Film festal law summer time. 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.440 Yeah, amazing movie, amazing. So I was telling him, you know, 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.319 this is my reason for why I shouldn't be in 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.720 the show. We should keep the same kind of format 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:19.720 for the Netflix show. And he argued that it wasn't special. 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.640 Now we're basically going into the documentary format and the 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:24.839 thing that I was pulling for a podcast that had 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.600 felt special is not going to be special once you 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.600 return it to the original source. And he said, what 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.719 would be much more interesting and intimate? Because I was 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:35.400 saying I kept saying the word intimacy, it was felt 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.240 more intimate to just have the first person narrative from 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.520 the guest. He said, well, I think what would be 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.880 more intimate is to see the two of you having 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:44.559 a conversation. 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.959 I agree, you're so unattractive, that's the problem. I mean, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:49.440 you should be on camera. 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.800 And he said, well, look, let's shoot something. We'll put 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.520 one camera on the subject and if you decide that's all. 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:58.400 You know, you just want to do that, fine, but 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.000 let me also put a camera on you and let's 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:02.720 try it. You know, would you be game. 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.559 For That'd you like it? 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.680 It was stressful? And then in the edit, you know, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.040 I kept on trying to cut out any kind of 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:10.920 reaction shots or anything like that. I was like, no, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.640 it's it's distracting. It's but a lot of the time 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:18.439 what the directors or the editors were trying to bring 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.920 in were moments of real human interaction as opposed to 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.680 something too antiseptic and clean. But for me, I felt like, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.400 oh clean was that's that's what I want. I wanted 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.880 to feel like my goal of the podcast. I wanted 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:34.720 to feel like it was just this beautifully made sculpture 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:36.920 where you couldn't see any seams and if you see 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.199 me laughing, or you see us like have this moment 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.960 of dialogue where you hear my question, doesn't that break 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:43.559 up the dream? I want the show to feel like 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:45.360 a dream and I don't want someone to wake up 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.000 in the middle. And they said, no, those moments are 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.720 real human interaction and that's actually something really wonderful to see, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.520 and they all basically agreed, and at a certain point 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:58.520 I said, Okay, if you all think this and I'm 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.200 the only one on the other side, then like maybe 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:02.920 I just need to let it go. But it was 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:03.520 it was tough. 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.120 We had people on our show over the years who 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.040 if you let it breathe if I can get in there, 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:10.720 because in the beginning I was very very hands on 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:12.679 trying to push them towards where I wanted them to go. 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:14.520 And when you come on and you just let it 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.240 happen and people are in the mood to talk to you. 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:19.640 We've had number a number of shows, but I like 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.560 in Name three, one was Tom Yorke. Tom Yorke came on. 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:25.360 I'm like, what the hell am I going to say 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:27.280 to this Guy's gonna be interesting to him. He doesn't 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.360 give a shit about me, He'd probably don't even know me. 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:31.640 And I'm sitting there talking to Tom York And it 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:32.000 was great. 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:33.760 It was heaven because he was he was in the 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.400 mood to talk. We did Nck Fleetwood, he was in 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.000 the mood to talk. We did Letterman. Letterman came and 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.440 even his own staff like had their hand over their mouth. 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:44.600 They couldn't believe what he was saying because he was 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:46.120 talking about how he was like, you know, he goes 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.080 how I was miserable. Well, I did was work, I 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.800 did have any kids, did have a family. Everything was work. 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.040 But he was really very very self disclosing, you know, 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.960 in that way where the conversation works of people just 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.320 flows now where we were talking about something like this 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.200 like Somebody is historic, you know, popular song. 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:04.920 Do you think that makes it easier for you? 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.840 It certainly makes it easier for me because they know 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.280 what the parameters of the story is going to be. 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.080 And I think it also allows me to probe in 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:16.760 other parts because if they're talking about something that where 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.440 they're very comfortable, they're talking about their artistry. You know, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.720 we're listening to stems and they're talking about the very 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.120 direct answer to a question of how did you make this? 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:27.960 I can then start to veer into well why did 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:29.960 you make this? And if I had started that way 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:31.760 and I didn't have the stems and I didn't have 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:33.920 the song to talk about and just said, you know, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:35.800 out of the blue, hey why did you write this lyric? 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.160 They might clam up, or they might you know, have 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.720 a different kind of reaction. But I think the familiarity 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.760 of the material and the small parameter of just let's 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.240 talk about this one song, let's get deep in that 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:49.720 one song, it helps them open up. And you know, 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.920 musicians can be tougher interviews because they they speak through 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:55.040 their music exactly. 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.320 Yeah, And they're not really that articulate. 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.480 In terms of interviews about the music. They're really just 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.200 play it. I don't want to talk about it. I 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:02.920 don't want to do it, ye know. And I've come 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:04.240 across that from time to time. 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:06.680 Can I say one thing, by the way, But so 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.400 the Letterman interview, if it's the one that I'm thinking of. 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.000 You did a Letterman interview in December of twenty thirteen. 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:14.880 My god, that's uncanny. 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.000 It was important to me in a few different ways. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.360 One because I had not interviewed people I was trying 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.080 to absorb. At this point, I had, you know, I 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.080 had the concept for the show. I'd made one episode 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.760 as a sort of pilot, and then I was like, okay, 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.000 I'm going to do this. I was trying to learn 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.440 as much as I could about interviewing from just taking 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.520 it in from other sources. And here's the thing is 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.160 one of the shows that I turned to. And the 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.360 other thing was I had never spoken into a mic before, 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.120 and i'd sung, but I hadn't recorded myself. And I 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.560 was like, well, how do I do this? And so 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.520 I launched the show in January of twenty fourteen. As 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.280 I was getting ready for that that episode that you did, 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.880 the last episode I think of twenty thirteen around that 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.400 it was a Letterman interview. I listened to that and 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.960 tried to, you know, learn what I could about interviewing. 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.760 But also I tried to learn how to set my 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:11.680 microphone to sound like your voice. I was like, how 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.639 do I emulate something like that? And so I was 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.879 fiddling with my EQ settings on my microphone. 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.520 When you say that, it's interesting because it's to get 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.760 out of your own way to some guests come, they're 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:25.600 not in the mood to talk. You know, we do 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:27.679 the video now. I never wanted to do the video. 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.280 One of the first shows we did was Kathleen Turner 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.520 early on years ago, and Kathleen Turner comes in. 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:34.960 I called her on the phone and she. 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:36.120 Goes, oh baby. 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:38.160 She goes, so I have to is it on camera? 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:38.919 Is it on? 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.080 Are you doing the video with this thing? And I 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:42.679 go she goes, thank god, I can just come in 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.840 a ponytail, in my sweats and like every woman to 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.639 be perfectly honest. It's mostly the actresses and public figures 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:51.359 who are women are like, thank I don't have to 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.480 get ready and fill right, I have to do my hair, 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.200 on my makeup, with my clothes and so forth. 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.880 Do you find that when you're doing an interview now 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.600 on camera that the responses you get are different, Like 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.280 people can port themselves different than knowing that they're on camming. 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.800 That people who were professional public figures, they got it down. 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:08.720 We've been in front of cameras in all of our lives. 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.639 Now talk about West Wing? How did that happen? 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:17.159 Yeah, So from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, mainly I 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.679 made a podcast called The West Wing Weekly with my 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:21.720 friend Joshua Molina, who is an actor who was on 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.000