Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: I am cousin Jake, producer of The Quest Love Show.
Speaker 2: Throughout this season, as you've noticed, we've been doing many episodes.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here with Amir Thompson aka Questlove, and you
Speaker 2: know throughout the year, just drop us a line. Hit
Speaker 2: us in the dms of the QLs channels. Go to
Speaker 2: Questlove Supreme dot com. There's a contact us page, but
Speaker 2: ask questions, give us comments, give us feedback. We're gonna
Speaker 2: do some themed episodes beyond those questions. If you have
Speaker 2: any ideas just for these little mini conversations, do let
Speaker 2: us know, and please be liking subscribing. So we recently
Speaker 2: on one of these mini episodes of The Questlove Show,
Speaker 2: we talked about sinners. I want to move from film
Speaker 2: to television. You know, you talk a lot in passing
Speaker 2: about shows, and I don't know how you have the
Speaker 2: time to watch all these different things, plus have ten jobs.
Speaker 2: But I want to ask what people sitting next to
Speaker 2: each other on a plane or a train might ask,
Speaker 2: what are you currently watching?
Speaker 1: God, you gotta make me do this, aren't you. I've
Speaker 1: witnessed two couples break up because of not honoring the
Speaker 1: sacred contract or code of cheating on a series. On
Speaker 1: a series, I'm dead ass like it wasn't the thing
Speaker 1: that broke them up, but it was the straw that
Speaker 1: broke the camel's back. And I guess I can tell
Speaker 1: the story, which is basically a couple I knew that
Speaker 1: broke up. And this is like three years ago, so
Speaker 1: you know, the grace period's over. I guess he decided.
Speaker 1: I think it's either a tragedy, stuck or something like
Speaker 1: there was a reason why she had to miss four
Speaker 1: episodes or whatever they committed to watching, and so he
Speaker 1: decided to get a secret Amazon account or whatever so
Speaker 1: that he could watch this. And often, you know, with
Speaker 1: anyone who's technically challenged, and I've been one of these people,
Speaker 1: there's some people that don't know that if you buy
Speaker 1: an iPhone and an iPad or another laptop in your
Speaker 1: name and use the same cloud, all the information is
Speaker 1: going to go to all three devices. So she's very
Speaker 1: much aware that he's going further into the series, but
Speaker 1: she wants to use this as a tester. And so
Speaker 1: they're watching and he's acting all shocked and oh my god,
Speaker 1: did you know in his mind, probably a ward worthy
Speaker 1: acting job of the year whatever, and she gave him
Speaker 1: a chance to come clean. It's like and wasn't even like,
Speaker 1: so you didn't see this? Or She's like, why did
Speaker 1: you go through all that when you saw it already?
Speaker 1: And then that just like I didn't see it already?
Speaker 1: Why are you wanted me? Why did you see I
Speaker 1: She pulled out the iPad says you've seen it already,
Speaker 1: and then that led to see what else are you
Speaker 1: lying about? And then they trust issues. They were just
Speaker 1: never the same. They broke up like maybe four months later.
Speaker 1: So I vowed to never I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: care what happens. We're not committing to a show, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I just never ever seen any good happen out
Speaker 1: of this if it goes awry, and I have way
Speaker 1: too many TVs around me to, you know, and I
Speaker 1: want to cheat or whatever and see what happens. And
Speaker 1: so we agreed to not do it. And then we
Speaker 1: started being in a position where we would go to
Speaker 1: dinner with friends and they started talking about the love
Speaker 1: story the JFK. And first I was like, I'm good,
Speaker 1: I'm not a Ryan Murphy head, like I haven't watched
Speaker 1: all the other stuff, so I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: i'll miss this one out. But I mean people, just
Speaker 1: the way they talk about I was like, fomo, like
Speaker 1: you got to see this. And I started noticing that
Speaker 1: we're in a weird nineteen ninety seven regression right now.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of new restaurants and bars in my
Speaker 1: neighborhood that are trying to give you the feeling of
Speaker 1: what Sex and the City felt like its first season.
Speaker 1: Like there's literally a club that plays nothing but Sex
Speaker 1: and the City highlights, and literally people are cosplaying like
Speaker 1: it's nineteen ninety seven. The jeans right now that are
Speaker 1: in you know, there you go, so it's it's nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven again anyway. So we're like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's do this. But I was very cautious and against it.
Speaker 1: But it's like, okay, well, we'll commit to this thing.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that, you know, there was because
Speaker 1: of my touring schedule and stuff, we stopped at episode
Speaker 1: five and here we are now on episode eight, and
Speaker 1: I find out like two weeks ago that she's seeing
Speaker 1: it through and I'm like, wait a minute, Like what
Speaker 1: happened to our agreement that we were, and she was like, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't know you were serious. Like I was like, no, Like,
Speaker 1: I told you the whole story of the breakup and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and now you begging me to commit
Speaker 1: to the thing. I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: commit to the thing. I don't want to commit to
Speaker 1: the thing. I was like, I relented and I did it,
Speaker 1: and I legit felt away. Yeah, I was heard over that.
Speaker 1: I was like, and I'm still I'm not caught up,
Speaker 1: and she's already caught up. So yeah, love.
Speaker 2: Story, love story, gontch you and I will say this,
Speaker 2: I've only been married three years. Whole past works if
Speaker 2: you're traveling, you can give someone a whole past to
Speaker 2: cheatingh episode, but you got to communicate that.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, now you know there's there's the pit. She's
Speaker 1: already ahead on the pit. I have to catch up
Speaker 1: on the pit. She's also introduced another distraction in my
Speaker 1: life that is getting really really bad. I didn't resist
Speaker 1: it for snarky reasons or like because I think I'm
Speaker 1: better than or whatever, but just in general, I barely
Speaker 1: have watched any Kardashian related entertainment. Dog I saw one
Speaker 1: episode because she had it on in the room and
Speaker 1: they made a reference to something in the past or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then I started asking questions, So what happened when
Speaker 1: da da da da da da? He said, well, that
Speaker 1: was like season thirteen. You gotta know. Well, wait what
Speaker 1: happened da da da da da? Woll too, that was
Speaker 1: like season eight, And it just so happened. It was
Speaker 1: like one of them days where I had, like we
Speaker 1: had a hiatus, I have three days off, and I
Speaker 1: was in a hotel that happened to have Apple TV. Dude,
Speaker 1: I fell down the whole bad. Like I started on
Speaker 1: season one, I did not recognize who I was watching.
Speaker 1: It's almost to the point where now I have to
Speaker 1: watch the entire arc just so I can see them
Speaker 1: morph into what I am used to now because it's
Speaker 1: just night and day, like just for science. So like
Speaker 1: I want to see how this works. Yeah, I got you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: When is your TV time?
Speaker 2: Does it just vary when you have downtime?
Speaker 1: TV is? I mean the way TV works in my
Speaker 1: life is TV is more or less like an aquarium.
Speaker 1: When I explained how I researched Summer of Soul, I
Speaker 1: just kept all forty hours on a constant rotation.
Speaker 2: It's in the background of many a QLs playing exactly.
Speaker 1: And so those that really know me know that seventy
Speaker 1: percent of the time. I mean, I have pretty much
Speaker 1: one laptop with every all one thousand plus episodes of
Speaker 1: Soul Train on it. I just got all the SNL
Speaker 1: episodes because of what I did research wise. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just constantly playing. Maybe three years ago I decided
Speaker 1: to stop sleeping to noise. I used to always keep
Speaker 1: Soul Trained on even as I slept, wake up Soul Train,
Speaker 1: and it's usually depending on who I'm dating and her
Speaker 1: tolerance for Whenever the uh wow, you uh you really
Speaker 1: like Soul Training? Do you like? That's it? When I
Speaker 1: hear that, I'm like, all right, let me scale back
Speaker 1: and only do I'm a scale back and just do
Speaker 1: ten episodes a day, just ten, not twenty, but just
Speaker 1: ten episodes a day. So in my office at thirty Rock,
Speaker 1: I have it constantly running. Tarika is man. The way
Speaker 1: that he dives into every there's no television show he
Speaker 1: doesn't see. Tarik's schedule is he'll go to bed super early,
Speaker 1: but he'll get up at three thirty four am. You know,
Speaker 1: he'll get the kids lunch ready and on stuff. But
Speaker 1: he'll catch up on his writing and whatever TV shows
Speaker 1: he missed, like for him being alone while everyone's asleep
Speaker 1: those four hours I get between three thirty AM and
Speaker 1: when people wake up at like seven thirty eight, Like
Speaker 1: that's his thing. So he's always like, Yo, you gotta
Speaker 1: watch it. That's crazy. So when like a guest comes
Speaker 1: on the show, he'll already seen it. It's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: you gotta see it. Jone's crazy. James Poison will be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing it. So, I mean, I'll usually catch up
Speaker 1: on any dramas. I'm trying to finish shrinking right now,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to finish like, uh, Floor of Us, like
Speaker 1: all of those Apple drama whatever. I'll finish that in
Speaker 1: the office, But when i'm home, it's either movies or soldiering.
Speaker 2: Last question, you make some deep poll references. You're the
Speaker 2: only person I know that has multiple times referenced the
Speaker 2: Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You also Goooby Snack put me on to the Doobie
Speaker 2: Brothers bootleg episode of What's Happening comes up a lot
Speaker 2: as an analogy of other things going on in life
Speaker 2: and closing put the people onto an overlooked or underrated
Speaker 2: show just throughout history that you deeply appreciate but might
Speaker 2: not get the real estate on the streaming apps.
Speaker 1: All right, So Lenda CARLINI was just on the Tonight Show,
Speaker 1: but she had left the building before I got a
Speaker 1: chance to tell her how crucial instrumental me watching Freaks
Speaker 1: and Geeks was to the roots current business operandi right now.
Speaker 1: Freaks and Geese, of course, is Judd Apatow's series that
Speaker 1: you know. James Franco's in it, Linda's in it, everyone, yeah,
Speaker 1: Seth Rogan's Everyone's in it, like all anyone that's ever
Speaker 1: been in a Judd Apatow sphere like is in this series.
Speaker 1: It was just one season only, and it's literally it's
Speaker 1: almost like somewhere in between the wonder years of my
Speaker 1: soul called life or or almost Famous. So it's a
Speaker 1: series about a family in the early eighties to whom
Speaker 1: I don't know it yet, but the daughter is going
Speaker 1: to wind up being a dead head. She decides to
Speaker 1: put off college in the gap year. She doesn't even
Speaker 1: tell her family, I don't believe, and she just blindly
Speaker 1: hops in a Volkswagen Van and decides she's going to
Speaker 1: trail to the Grateful Dead, and and it just so
Speaker 1: happens I happen to be on the tour bus with
Speaker 1: my manager, down White, who's been my DJ manager for
Speaker 1: like twenty plus years, and she's like, oh, that was
Speaker 1: my story. I was a deadhead. And I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, explain that culture to me, because I don't
Speaker 1: get like people are constantly telling me, like, yo, you
Speaker 1: guys should jam more and solo more, Like your shows
Speaker 1: are so calculated, well rehearsed, and you could run it
Speaker 1: by the clock and you know, there's no spontaneity in it.
Speaker 1: You're a band, for God's sakes, like rehearse a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I think I was more or less gunshy to
Speaker 1: do that because critics were really not good to jam bands.
Speaker 1: You know. It just so happens that when she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you should, really, I was like, I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: I don't see the value and Grateful Dead or whatever.
Speaker 1: But we just happened to be somewhere in Rhode Island
Speaker 1: and we happen to be playing a club owned by
Speaker 1: one of the members of Fish Okay, And she was saying,
Speaker 1: and the collation between like Fish is the new Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead and Da da Da. She's trying to explain to me,
Speaker 1: like why Fish is so important and it's not just
Speaker 1: a band that has an ice cream flavor that you know,
Speaker 1: but like this is what they mean, Like I didn't
Speaker 1: get the meaning of fish. And the other thing about
Speaker 1: this is that hub our bass player had to miss
Speaker 1: this gig, so Tuba had to be the bass player.
Speaker 1: And kind of when that aesthetic is missing, you have
Speaker 1: to figure out other ways to keep the show punchy.
Speaker 1: And so we kind of morphed into a jam band
Speaker 1: or at least a really really funked out hip hop
Speaker 1: version of like a New Orleans line band with Go
Speaker 1: Go whatever. But it was real jammy and it wound
Speaker 1: up like because of that audience, knowing that the establishment
Speaker 1: that they were in, like they were a jam band audience,
Speaker 1: and the way they just kept cheering his arm like
Speaker 1: we'd never seen him at a hip hop show, and
Speaker 1: that just led me down another rabbit hole and another
Speaker 1: rabbit hole, and another rabbit hole and another and then
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, like shout out to Dan Pertussie
Speaker 1: at okay player like hooking us up with Fish to
Speaker 1: see like one of their last I guess Dan had
Speaker 1: convinced them to like let the roots trail you guys,
Speaker 1: just to see like because he's been trying for the
Speaker 1: longest on the road. Yeah, we did. Me Sean Gee,
Speaker 1: my manager, Richard, my manager, and Dan. We went. I
Speaker 1: went to either two or three shows, and Dan just
Speaker 1: wanted to see the lay of the land because I
Speaker 1: was anti taping, like why are they taping our shows?
Speaker 1: And trading and you know, and then you want us
Speaker 1: to sell what we just did on stage, like in
Speaker 1: the at the Merchant, So like one show, I just
Speaker 1: stayed in the merch area to see, like the band's
Speaker 1: on stage. It's like, why are you guys stayed in
Speaker 1: line like they were literally waiting for the tapes from
Speaker 1: like last night show to be ready. I'm like, but
Speaker 1: you're missing. I've just never seen anything like that. And
Speaker 1: once I realized that, because my main question was how's
Speaker 1: this band making over eight figures a year? How are
Speaker 1: they selling out Madison Square Gardens seven nights in a row?
Speaker 1: And they never did TRL or one of six in park,
Speaker 1: like they don't need a hot sixteen from Jazy right,
Speaker 1: and like how are they? I know, we do more
Speaker 1: than like how are they winning? And I had to
Speaker 1: learn that language. So, you know, I will say that
Speaker 1: Freaks and Geeks really was the perfect gateway drug for
Speaker 1: me to understand. And I'm still we're still navigating, and
Speaker 1: I know we're pioneers in this thing. And yes, I
Speaker 1: know there's like snarky puppy, I know that on the
Speaker 1: jam band circuit, like there's more what I will say,
Speaker 1: groove warriored bands there. But yeah, definitely in those first
Speaker 1: three years it was like they never or been dying
Speaker 1: or starving for like funk on a jam level, like
Speaker 1: really good musicians that are like really know their music
Speaker 1: and their grooves and stuff. And so it is an
Speaker 1: uncharted territory. You know. We'll end on with levity.
Speaker 2: You recently shared a great story in the Jamie Lee
Speaker 2: Curtis episode of playing in the Air Tonight in a
Speaker 2: drumstick literally backfire. Yeah, my favorite opening of any episode
Speaker 2: of Freaks and Geeks is Jason.
Speaker 1: Jason Siegel's character is a drummer. He's in his garage
Speaker 1: and he adores rush.
Speaker 2: Yes, the dry mass and the whole thing, and it
Speaker 2: does not go the way he imagines. Yes, for you
Speaker 2: did you have a moment in watching that great cold
Speaker 2: opening that channeled any moment of yours?
Speaker 1: Of grandeur? I can top it. I believe his first
Speaker 1: walk on song on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was
Speaker 1: us doing Tom Oh Tom Sawyer. Yes, us doing Tom
Speaker 1: Sawyer for for that exact yes, for that reference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he got it. I love, I love want to
Speaker 1: walk on reference lands? Yeah, because when I walked from
Speaker 1: behind the curtain, you can faintly hear the band, like
Speaker 1: if the audience is cheering like that, you can hear
Speaker 1: the audience louder than you hear the band. So oftentimes,
Speaker 1: like the band will tease me because I will work
Speaker 1: them so hard just to pull out some like really
Speaker 1: weird reference for the artists coming out, and when it
Speaker 1: doesn't land, they just look at me like we could
Speaker 1: add an extra half hour of lunch and they missed
Speaker 1: a reference. But usually a note will come, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: my publish just told me you did no not from
Speaker 1: my childhood. How does that upset you all that the
Speaker 1: secrets out? Or uh no, no, no, I mean it.
Speaker 1: I mean people generally know, I mean that we tailored,
Speaker 1: but they know ahead of time. No, no, no, don't tell
Speaker 1: me that's what I mean. So they get after like on,
Speaker 1: once they watch the show, they'll be like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I was on the show. This local public asks us, so,
Speaker 1: how do you know that? So I have a whole
Speaker 1: slew of how did you know that? It's your hard war? Yes,
Speaker 1: got okay? Shout out to Tom Hayes and Sean and
Speaker 1: all the okay player vets that helped me throughout the years.
Speaker 1: Get those accolades. You know. They're definitely the unspoken heroes
Speaker 1: of the walk On song. Guys, this is the Quest
Speaker 1: Love Show. I really appreciate all your feedback. We do
Speaker 1: read the comments and all your feedback. Please like and
Speaker 1: subscribe the show. Spread the word of this show and
Speaker 1: give us suggestions. People you want to see on the show.
Speaker 1: Let us know and we will try to make your
Speaker 1: dreams come true. All right. Quest Loop Show is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio h