Speaker 1: Pushkin. James Fauntleroy is one of the most prolific pop
Speaker 1: songwriters of the last fifteen years. Some of his most
Speaker 1: prized placements include songs written for Beyonce, Rihanna, Justin, Timberlake,
Speaker 1: Bruno mars In, so many others. He's also contributed background
Speaker 1: vocals to songs by Travis Scott, Jay Z, and his
Speaker 1: longtime friend the late Nimsey Hustle. Similar to his music
Speaker 1: industry idol and mentor Babyface, James Fauntleroy is also an
Speaker 1: artist in his own right. His own songs, that are
Speaker 1: best described as a really innovative take on alt R
Speaker 1: and B have lived on streaming platforms for the last decade,
Speaker 1: but in December he finally released his first official debut album,
Speaker 1: The Warmest Winter Ever, a Christmas album that's put through
Speaker 1: the font Leroy filter. On today's episode, I talked to
Speaker 1: James Fauntleroy about why he decided to drop his debut
Speaker 1: album well over a decade into his career. He also
Speaker 1: explains how hundreds of his songs were stolen and posted
Speaker 1: online by international hackers, and why he considers both weird
Speaker 1: Al Yankovic and John Mayer among some of his biggest
Speaker 1: musical influences. This is broken record liner notes to the
Speaker 1: digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my conversation with James Fauntleroy,
Speaker 1: little man.
Speaker 2: I mean, too, what's that?
Speaker 1: I through?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my first album came out today?
Speaker 1: Your album?
Speaker 3: I know, man, come on dog, this is this is it?
Speaker 2: So that's nice? And then my first the last album
Speaker 2: for that was not my album, but it got nominated.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the EP with with with Terrists, that's right.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to sing one of those songs today.
Speaker 1: You nervous about it?
Speaker 2: No, I that's hard for me to feel nervousness. That's
Speaker 2: always been like that. It's hard to feel nervousness and
Speaker 2: also excitement, like since a kid, even yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's always been like that. Always just been like fuck it,
Speaker 2: getting on stages and talking and doing speeches and know whatever.
Speaker 1: If you don't feel you have nervousness, how do you
Speaker 1: deal with Not that you've experienced a lot of it,
Speaker 1: but how do you deal with any even small level
Speaker 1: of not even failure. I guess it's something not going.
Speaker 2: On experienced exponential amounts of failure. Rejection, disappointment because that's
Speaker 2: music business. It sounds like good podcast stuff, but I
Speaker 2: think that it helps in that sense, because you have
Speaker 2: to be some type of insane to continue to do
Speaker 2: anything after you've been told no, I'm seven.
Speaker 1: Hundred for me. I've only recently gotten to the point
Speaker 1: of where I was just just fuck it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like people used to say that, like
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like or that Cat Williams
Speaker 1: bit back in the day of just you know your
Speaker 1: a little fucking well.
Speaker 2: That's probably because a lot of artists have like tough lives.
Speaker 2: So my life was so rough before I started doing this,
Speaker 2: I didn't even notice it was a thing you could do.
Speaker 1: Man, So before the music industry, you sh your life
Speaker 1: was tough. It was crazy.
Speaker 2: It was crazy on multiple levels.
Speaker 1: When you look back, what do you what do you see?
Speaker 2: I see somebody that ended up being really super lucky,
Speaker 2: just general lucky, also l the luck of being exposed
Speaker 2: to different identities and possibilities. So yesterday I met with
Speaker 2: the Department of Corrections, which was funny cause the first
Speaker 2: cause I'm doing a pilot program for like juvenile probation
Speaker 2: kids and shit, and the lady was like, just so
Speaker 2: you know, these kids are dangerous, and I just started
Speaker 2: laughing cause I was like, lady, I'm dangerous. I'm not
Speaker 2: scared of these kids. You know, I know what their
Speaker 2: lives are, like, I know why they cause I had
Speaker 2: the same experience. It was like all ds and f's
Speaker 2: for the entire time I was in school. Which is
Speaker 2: so funny because I'm such I'm so such an intellectual
Speaker 2: that it's almost like, you know what I mean, like.
Speaker 1: You damn yourself identify as a nerd right.
Speaker 2: Like, oh not damn near it. I mean, I'm wearing
Speaker 2: a Pokemon diamond chain. But yeah, I've been thirty modeling
Speaker 2: for ten years. I'm always trying to get people to
Speaker 2: watch CS fifty that's Harvard's free computer science course on YouTube.
Speaker 2: I'm a serious, serious nerd. But I just happened to
Speaker 2: be born in you know, a wild environment at a
Speaker 2: wild time. It was like the height of well when
Speaker 2: I was born was the year Crack was born.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And so my father, who I don't know he was,
Speaker 2: he was military intelligence. When you finish military with that
Speaker 2: level job, you can get a good corporate job. So
Speaker 2: he got hired at Xerox Corporate where he was taking
Speaker 2: money out of the safe to buy cocaine, and people
Speaker 2: didn't know that crack turned you into a zombie. So
Speaker 2: when he ran out of money, obviously got fired. That
Speaker 2: caught him. Can put the money back fast enough and
Speaker 2: he started smoking crack. Just take the edge off and
Speaker 2: then boom, that's crackhead. So how old are you when
Speaker 2: he was strung out of three? So I don't have
Speaker 2: any memory of it. When my dad was a crackhead.
Speaker 2: My first cousin was a heroin that age. I grew
Speaker 2: up in all these extreme like just hood environments, losing
Speaker 2: friends and gun violence from childhood to my adulthood because
Speaker 2: Nipsey was one of my best friends. So like I'm
Speaker 2: I mean, one of my friends died last year. Still,
Speaker 2: so it's still like that, even though it's nowhere near
Speaker 2: what it was when the murder ate it was like
Speaker 2: two thousand people.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. When when things like Nipsey happened, now, man,
Speaker 1: it's almost for me it feels like like damn, Holy
Speaker 1: pat Like it feels like because it was obviously where
Speaker 1: it was much more, it was happening much more often,
Speaker 1: but so it feels, I hate to say, like a
Speaker 1: throwback almost sometimes still when when.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you know, if you if you work
Speaker 2: on the symptoms and not the cause, then the disease
Speaker 2: is not gone. So the cause of the environment, of
Speaker 2: low socio economic environment is something that we're not allowed
Speaker 2: to actually talk about, our address under the social contract
Speaker 2: of human life. So until we can do that, which
Speaker 2: is gonna take, you know, probably another couple hundred years,
Speaker 2: then the issue is not gonna change.
Speaker 1: Revolution is slow.
Speaker 2: I didn't know we were we were doing the podcast,
Speaker 2: so I wouldn't even talk about you won't take that
Speaker 2: and we can take it out. No, no, it's cool.
Speaker 3: See let me know, man, all right, so let's start. Hey,
Speaker 3: what's up. Well, now we're gonna put it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put a mask on that.
Speaker 3: What's up, hey man?
Speaker 2: How you doing?
Speaker 1: Hey good? How are you doing? Man? Man? Congratulations on
Speaker 1: your debut album.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Man, it's a wild thing to
Speaker 2: have a debut album almost twenty years.
Speaker 3: Into it's like a young buck.
Speaker 2: Yeah man, yeah, bro, it's I think it's time. I
Speaker 2: think we're in an era that it's hard to keep
Speaker 2: that age stigma. You know, existing in the Internet era,
Speaker 2: because it's just obviously not really anymore.
Speaker 1: This project that you put out almost whenever been out
Speaker 1: to some degree a couple of different iteration years.
Speaker 2: Yeahah, the majority of.
Speaker 1: It, so first time in twenty fourteen, first batch of
Speaker 1: songs released in twenty fourteen, then twenty twenty sixteen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: why did you decide to compile those and drop those? Now?
Speaker 2: It's a gift, you know what I mean? Like, I
Speaker 2: haven't identified as an artist for this my entire career
Speaker 2: for a bunch of different reasons. But from the very
Speaker 2: beginning till now, Like let's say I had a thousand
Speaker 2: fans when I started off, but like ten of the
Speaker 2: fans were some of the biggest artists on the planet Earth,
Speaker 2: and they were finding my music either from me working
Speaker 2: in a session somebody or someone telling them about it,
Speaker 2: and then going on YouTube, where I had hundreds of
Speaker 2: songs uploaded, and especially at that time I uploaded exactly
Speaker 2: zero of those songs. We were all hacked, and like
Speaker 2: who was putting them up? There were hackers from Germany,
Speaker 2: from Paris, from Russia. They would contact me and tell me,
Speaker 2: like I remember one time, this is just I think
Speaker 2: it was a German, German or French hacker, but he
Speaker 2: found my aim, this aim at the time, and he
Speaker 2: sent me a picture of like two hundred songs and
Speaker 2: was like, these hundred, these are all stolen. He was like,
Speaker 2: these hundred I'm posting, but this hundred over here, I
Speaker 2: really like these. I'm gonna hold on to these. Just Rockulus.
Speaker 2: So shout out to the hackers because they really they
Speaker 2: were my first digital marketing team.
Speaker 1: How did these hackers know about you? Like?
Speaker 2: What was basically the hustle was, which a lot of
Speaker 2: music business people don't even know that because they're not
Speaker 2: computer people. And I've always been a serious, serious computer man.
Speaker 2: I knew the hackers were going to be stealing people's
Speaker 2: songs before it happened, because I know how, I know
Speaker 2: how it works and how they stole it. And so basically,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say who it was with a
Speaker 2: prominent music business person sitting out a mass email one time,
Speaker 2: and they didn't know how to use blind carving copies,
Speaker 2: so they put the email of almost everybody I'd ever
Speaker 2: met in the music business was in this one email,
Speaker 2: and I remember seeing it and I was like, knowing
Speaker 2: what I know about hacking. I was like, this is
Speaker 2: this is not good because the wrong person gets their
Speaker 2: hands on all these emails. This is the beginning of
Speaker 2: my career.
Speaker 1: And I was like, and with someone trying to help
Speaker 1: you essentially that he just.
Speaker 2: Was sending out like a blast about an artist. It
Speaker 2: was like, yo, I got a new artist. Everybody look
Speaker 2: at this. But he put almost everybody's music in the
Speaker 2: music business email and this thing. And I was like,
Speaker 2: this is just not smart to have everybody's emails in
Speaker 2: one place like this. This is the purpose of blind
Speaker 2: carving copy. And shortly after that people started receiving these.
Speaker 2: It's called phishing, which now is a more known term.
Speaker 2: But sure enough, phishing emails started going out of people,
Speaker 2: you know, like cloning industry emails and saying, yo, did
Speaker 2: you get this file to this? And they still do
Speaker 2: that to this day. But basically what they what you're
Speaker 2: able to do, especially the further you go back in time,
Speaker 2: the less security you had to deal with the emails,
Speaker 2: and so they were tricking them into giving you their
Speaker 2: user name or not to use the name of their password.
Speaker 2: Then when you can go in the email and set
Speaker 2: up an attachment filter and have it forwarded to another email.
Speaker 2: So basically they were going in all the an RS, executives, producers,
Speaker 2: everybody's emails, setting up attachment filters to forward all attachments
Speaker 2: to their emails. And then they're incentive for doing this
Speaker 2: was they were uploading all these leaks to websites where
Speaker 2: like music fans would go, and then they were getting
Speaker 2: money from the ads on the website. Wow, so they're
Speaker 2: cleaning up.
Speaker 1: I was on those websites. I'm those websites yet, so.
Speaker 3: Think about it.
Speaker 2: When you went to them old websites in the early
Speaker 2: two thousands or mid two thousands, they were covered in ads.
Speaker 1: Crazy ass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the hackers were cleaning up. But they also
Speaker 2: a lot of these guys, which if you think about
Speaker 2: it makes sense because a hacker is someone that sits
Speaker 2: in front of a computer all day. So they love.
Speaker 1: Music, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So like because they're listening to music while they're doing
Speaker 2: their various hack things.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: It's not all it's not it's not only commercial concerns.
Speaker 1: So like these under songs, I'm.
Speaker 2: No, they're like and And a friend of mine got
Speaker 2: to email that of a hacker that was like, we
Speaker 2: want all of your James Funtleroy unsure. Uh, I forgot
Speaker 2: who the other people were they were. It was like
Speaker 2: he was like, we're coming for your ship.
Speaker 3: We know you got them Usher songs. We coming to
Speaker 3: get that ship.
Speaker 2: And so what end up happening is they're putting all
Speaker 2: they're putting all these songs on YouTube also so they
Speaker 2: can get ad revenue. And now my small fan base,
Speaker 2: which includes some of these huge celebrities, are able to
Speaker 2: go on YouTube and listen to my songs and other
Speaker 2: writers and go on YouTube and listening to a hundred
Speaker 2: of my songs, and so that that really had a
Speaker 2: big impact on me getting work and having something to
Speaker 2: support the word of mouth, but also giving like hundreds
Speaker 2: of writers, like just hundreds of songs to study my style.
Speaker 2: So that was a part of my style.
Speaker 1: Becoming proliferating around right big with this in the you
Speaker 1: know R and B saying, so you were just making
Speaker 1: these songs like your own personal songs.
Speaker 2: And I was trying to get placements. So when I
Speaker 2: got my first placement or or song on someone's album,
Speaker 2: it was on Katherine McPhee's album, and I don't remember
Speaker 2: the name of the song. But I was so excited
Speaker 2: because you know, like just getting one song place is
Speaker 2: a miracle. And the time, yeah, it was popping, I
Speaker 2: was I was happy. And the guy, one of the
Speaker 2: guys that worked at the publishing company came to me
Speaker 2: and he was keeping track of like everybody's songs because
Speaker 2: that was part of his job, and he gave me
Speaker 2: a spreadsheet and was like, I want you to see this,
Speaker 2: and showed me that I had written or started three
Speaker 2: hundred songs before my first placement. So like a lot
Speaker 2: of those songs and we're the ones that people are
Speaker 2: sending to an rs and stuff trying to shop them,
Speaker 2: which is so funny because I have almost no I
Speaker 2: have like five hundred releases, and I think one came
Speaker 2: from shopping of all those five hundred songs, the other
Speaker 2: hundreds of songs came from people was just finding my
Speaker 2: personal music and becoming fans. And to answer this extremely
Speaker 2: long answer to your question why I wanted to do
Speaker 2: this now is because over the years, my super small
Speaker 2: fan base has grown to a bigger small fan base
Speaker 2: of people that are really so supportive and just you know,
Speaker 2: like giving me so much energy, especially when I'm the
Speaker 2: music I've been releasing over the years is really just
Speaker 2: you know, like to satisfy create my creative you know,
Speaker 2: desire or whatever, just wanting to be able to release
Speaker 2: things that I don't have to think about all the
Speaker 2: parameters that come with working with superstars, even though I
Speaker 2: also love parameters because they forced you to do something different.
Speaker 2: And so why I'm putting the album out now is
Speaker 2: I I just can't take it anymore. I want to
Speaker 2: let the fans and people that listen to my music
Speaker 2: in the community and at large know that I appreciate
Speaker 2: all the support by putting some energy into it. And
Speaker 2: then also I want to update these niggas because you know,
Speaker 2: like so many people study me. And then also it's
Speaker 2: because I've already seen a lot of people talking about
Speaker 2: like why is James's first album on Christmas? Album? Actually,
Speaker 2: today I.
Speaker 3: Saw don't steal My question broll No.
Speaker 2: Today I saw a sweet that said James Finloy's debut
Speaker 2: album being a Christmas album is such a James Finleroy
Speaker 2: thing to do, and I was like missing accomplish. So
Speaker 2: it was why is your first album with christ Well
Speaker 2: part of it, there's a couple of answers one is like,
Speaker 2: because these songs have been out for so long I have,
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of time to see what people
Speaker 2: like or not, you know, and I get a lot
Speaker 2: of responses about this Christmas music throughout the year and
Speaker 2: four years, like so I know people like it, and
Speaker 2: I know people listen to it not only in Christmas,
Speaker 2: but creatively. It's just it's a fun way to stretch
Speaker 2: my imagination because like, like, for instance, I did an
Speaker 2: album one time that people don't even know. It's seven
Speaker 2: songs on the projects and each one of them is
Speaker 2: referencing one of the days of creation in the Bible.
Speaker 2: And you know, like I did that because I was
Speaker 2: studying philosophy at the time, but also because it's just
Speaker 2: fun when you give yourself new. You know, almost every
Speaker 2: song is about the same like three or four things.
Speaker 2: And I told you I wrote three hundred songs before
Speaker 2: my first one, so you can imagine that was almost
Speaker 2: twenty years ago. How many have written up to this
Speaker 2: point and you started running out of shit to say
Speaker 2: and do, and like, how do you how do I
Speaker 2: make this fun? It's like coming up with something new
Speaker 2: to challenge myself and pull something new out of myself
Speaker 2: and I'm still I feel like I still haven't had
Speaker 2: which is gonna sound crazy. I can feel it right now,
Speaker 2: but I feel like I still haven't had the success
Speaker 2: trying to get well.
Speaker 1: But it's funny because you're working in two different like
Speaker 1: like you could judge your success a couple different ways.
Speaker 1: Like obviously, working as a writer producer, you've had just
Speaker 1: about as much success as won't can help to have
Speaker 1: as a writer producer, right, But then there is this
Speaker 1: like thing of you as an artist, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, now, when I go to look for James
Speaker 1: Fauntleroy on Apple Music or Spotify or whatever, it's not
Speaker 1: just you featured on whatever, it's like an actual body
Speaker 1: of work from you that I could So it's like
Speaker 1: this other thing probably keeps things fun for you man
Speaker 1: to like keep yourself challenged.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I got to think of something because the
Speaker 2: music business is not fun.
Speaker 3: So like what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: It's terrible? I mean, like, you know, every movie about
Speaker 2: the music business is terrible, like The Temptations, that's the
Speaker 2: one I always use.
Speaker 3: But you got to stay off of drugs.
Speaker 2: You got to show because it's like we're selling an
Speaker 2: intangible product, you know, and so like it's a breeding
Speaker 2: ground for common and you know, like people who are
Speaker 2: unscrupulous because it's it's it's a great environment to hustle,
Speaker 2: you know. So like that's really one of my life
Speaker 2: goals is to prove that you can be successful without
Speaker 2: being a piece of shit and fucking people over left
Speaker 2: and right, and you know, like doing fair business.
Speaker 1: And do you find yourself in the and wanting to
Speaker 1: practice less predatory sort of business practices? Do you do
Speaker 1: you find that like people try to screw you over
Speaker 1: every day?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And do you think people are trying to screw you
Speaker 1: over more because necessarily see that as maybe a weakness
Speaker 1: and you're not trying to hustle.
Speaker 2: I think they're just on autopilot, just doing whatever they can,
Speaker 2: just trying stuff like the raptors in Jurassic Park when
Speaker 2: they're like hitting an electric fence. That's these guys are
Speaker 2: just like testing every fence they get they come in
Speaker 2: contact with. And I wish it would be nice if
Speaker 2: people would, you know, like consider that before I got
Speaker 2: to this latest person that's trying to take advantage of me,
Speaker 2: how many people I had to get through to get
Speaker 2: to this point, it would be nice and they would
Speaker 2: just but I can't be mad. I you know, I've
Speaker 2: been in Vegas. I played Rouette once.
Speaker 1: It was really I was like, I get it, you
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, you know you win one time and it
Speaker 2: just hooks you. So every time somebody, every time I
Speaker 2: see anyone do anything crazy or say anything crazy, my
Speaker 2: first thought is, though they got away with that shit before,
Speaker 2: and that's why they think they could do that.
Speaker 1: So it's really it's the business that's not fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the music that can also lose its excitement for
Speaker 2: a number of different reasons. But yeah, it's the business
Speaker 2: and just human life. Like I study forhilosophy so extensively,
Speaker 2: Like I spoke at the Philosophical Research Society. I think
Speaker 2: that was this year.
Speaker 1: Wow, what'd you speak on? This?
Speaker 2: One was about a famous philosophical text called The Secret
Speaker 2: Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall's who founded
Speaker 2: the Philosophical Research Society. And my first talk there was
Speaker 2: like a decade ago, and that was on NPR. And
Speaker 2: I just found the footage because I feel like people
Speaker 2: think I'm lying when I say that ship, but I got.
Speaker 3: Evidence now it's on NPR.
Speaker 2: And then it with NPR and now I had college
Speaker 2: professors for risks.
Speaker 1: Bro, you did it.
Speaker 3: It's like I did it on Believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah it Ron Rihanna Sance, You're like pulling up MPR footage.
Speaker 1: Chance Bro, Damn well, how'd you go to the philosophy going? Broke?
Speaker 4: Some people?
Speaker 2: When you lose all your money, that's when you really
Speaker 2: started looking for God, right in that moment you started
Speaker 2: praying and ship.
Speaker 1: It was just after you had some money.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, you know, I haven't met a person yet that
Speaker 2: didn't blow their first million dollars, and most people I
Speaker 2: know are have also blown their last million dollars. So
Speaker 2: it's just a That's Another part of the predatory environment
Speaker 2: that makes it hard to enjoy is like you know,
Speaker 2: like in sports, for instance, they have preferred business management
Speaker 2: and regulatory boards, and they have all these things that
Speaker 2: have come into place to protect the young.
Speaker 1: Athletes, mentorship systems, it's the whole.
Speaker 2: Thing address that because they realize that the quality of
Speaker 2: life the players are experiencing has an impact on the product.
Speaker 2: Versus in our industry, there's none of that. There's no
Speaker 2: regulatory boards, so people can do any deal that you
Speaker 2: will sign and with no oversight. There's no even like
Speaker 2: industry of what the term business manager implies. So like
Speaker 2: the biggest firms that are typical and the biggest entertainers
Speaker 2: that are going to like what you would consider like
Speaker 2: music firms, what they're getting is a CPA that's an accountant.
Speaker 2: So the accountant is like paying your bills typically on
Speaker 2: auto pay, calling the credit card company when your car
Speaker 2: doesn't work in room or whatever. But what business manager
Speaker 2: implies is that they're going to manage your business. So
Speaker 2: what you're actually looking for is wealth management. Somebody that's gonna,
Speaker 2: you know, come up with a plan for your money
Speaker 2: so that you can build a wealth and budgeting and
Speaker 2: whatever versus. I mean, my last business manager I had,
Speaker 2: you know, I would call and say, hey, can I
Speaker 2: afford this? They'd be like, hell, yeah, bye too, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, And that actually that's not the truth.
Speaker 3: And so was that a good thing?
Speaker 2: No, it was a terrible thing.
Speaker 1: Sounds like great great news to me too, I wish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's not that's not real, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. Because basically what they're doing is banking on
Speaker 2: the fact that you'll just always have income, and that's
Speaker 2: not how we get we we rarely get paid, especially
Speaker 2: if you're a songwriter. That's a whole other conversation because
Speaker 2: producers at least get fees, and a songwriter as big
Speaker 2: as I am, I get fees sometimes, but that's not
Speaker 2: what we're all expecting that I'm not going to get
Speaker 2: a fee, you know what I mean. And so for
Speaker 2: a songwriter it's it's even harder because like, you just
Speaker 2: don't have any way to get paid except for your
Speaker 2: publishing advance, which is based on your ability to have
Speaker 2: hit songs, which is something you also can't control.
Speaker 1: Right after a quick break, will be back with more
Speaker 1: of an interview with James Fontleroy. We're back with more
Speaker 1: from James font Leroy. Your name has always been a
Speaker 1: gold standard in terms of so I know you're saying
Speaker 1: you're not Babe Ruth, you can't call hits, and it's true,
Speaker 1: but you've had an overwhelming amount of great songs written
Speaker 1: with great artists over you know, now damn near twenty years.
Speaker 1: How have you been able to retain that level of creativity?
Speaker 2: And well, a hit song is that's something you buy,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like, a hit song is
Speaker 2: not a sound it's an element of a marketing campaign
Speaker 2: that costs a certain amount of money. So when people
Speaker 2: are when I hear like an amateur, like I got
Speaker 2: my new single coming out, I'm like, no, you don't
Speaker 2: have any money. You're putting a song out. That's what
Speaker 2: that's called a single, or somebody that's a budget behind.
Speaker 2: That's that's what a single is.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm like, I can't, I can't call it
Speaker 2: hit because that depends on you know, like what what
Speaker 2: people respond to, but more importantly, how much money people
Speaker 2: are spending on it. Now, what I can say is
Speaker 2: that I have really good tastes. And why my taste,
Speaker 2: why I have so much confidence confidence in my taste
Speaker 2: is because although some of it is inherent or whatever,
Speaker 2: but for the most part, it's it's not about that.
Speaker 2: It's we have evidence of what works. We have Stevie Wonder,
Speaker 2: we have Prince, we have Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis,
Speaker 2: we got Babyface, we got Dying Warren, we got all
Speaker 2: these people, and it's really our job as modern creators
Speaker 2: to try to comprehend not how to do what they did,
Speaker 2: but what worked. You know, I had an argument with
Speaker 2: them he's a really big executive now. At the time
Speaker 2: he was a big executive. I had an argument with
Speaker 2: this guy one time because he was telling me that
Speaker 2: my songs were too complex, which she was right, but
Speaker 2: he was like it was crazy too, because he was
Speaker 2: asking me to work for this artist and I was
Speaker 2: like no, And then he was like, come on, work
Speaker 2: with the artist, and I was like no. So then
Speaker 2: he said he wanted to have a meeting with me.
Speaker 2: Then he calls me in the meeting, and the whole
Speaker 2: meeting is him telling me why my songs won't be
Speaker 2: hit songs. And so this is the early part of
Speaker 2: my career. So I'm sitting here. Also, at the time,
Speaker 2: my manager was there, and my poor manager didn't know
Speaker 2: what my personality was like because growing up in the
Speaker 2: environment I grew up and I knew, like, you know,
Speaker 2: like in these kind of situations, yeah, unless they know
Speaker 2: the better he does. So I'm just like he imagine
Speaker 2: me for like almost two years, and he didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I was like I am. So I'm sitting here listening
Speaker 2: to this guy who just I told no twice, tell
Speaker 2: me why my songs will never be hits, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: I feel the pressure rising up that I'm about to
Speaker 2: let this guy have it, and I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 2: my manager, this is gonna happen. And so even though
Speaker 2: I haven't, I've never yelled at anyone in the music business.
Speaker 2: But and I have theories on why people feel like
Speaker 2: I'm yelling at them when I'm talking calmly, because I
Speaker 2: sounded just like this when I'm talking to this guy.
Speaker 2: But after I let him say all this ridiculous shit,
Speaker 2: I was like, man, with all due respect, like if
Speaker 2: you take the number one songs from any period, like
Speaker 2: the last year, the last ten years, last thirty years,
Speaker 2: they're different tempos, different topics, different genres, different looking people.
Speaker 2: None of those factors are the thing and something else
Speaker 2: that they have in common that I know that you
Speaker 2: don't know. And so for you to sit here and
Speaker 2: tell me that I don't know how to write his song,
Speaker 2: it's absolutely ridiculous. Nobody knows, you know. But of the
Speaker 2: two of.
Speaker 1: Us, yeah, you know more than.
Speaker 2: He was like, you're absolutely right. I hope he here's
Speaker 2: the shit and not just the truth. So like how
Speaker 2: I have there's two things I'm thinking about. I'm measuring
Speaker 2: the quality of my music and the quality of the
Speaker 2: writing and melodies and all this stuff against these greats
Speaker 2: that I listed. So I'm like, I'm not looking at
Speaker 2: what people right now are doing. I'm looking at the
Speaker 2: people that already proved to us. Oh, because this is
Speaker 2: another thing I tell people all the time. Every generation
Speaker 2: thinks their music is the best, right man, When I
Speaker 2: was young, it was so good. I think that too now,
Speaker 2: even though I know what I'm about to tell you
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: And also, people are always like, you got to make
Speaker 2: music simple because everybody's stupid, right, And so I tell
Speaker 2: people all the time, one, people have always been stupid,
Speaker 2: day one, the first human to the last is going
Speaker 2: to be an abundance of idiots. So when Stevie Wonder
Speaker 2: was putting out music, people were just dumb as they
Speaker 2: were now. And then further, when I think about all
Speaker 2: these these different people that I'm talking about the other
Speaker 2: element of what makes people like songs, It's like, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm comparing myself quality wise to all these greats. But
Speaker 2: what I'm really trying to do with the song is
Speaker 2: turn a consumer into a believer, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Like that's yeah, Like that's something that connects you with
Speaker 2: the person because I'm always telling people, which is just
Speaker 2: funny because I have I've seen I just saw an
Speaker 2: interview with somebody saying the opposite of what I'm about
Speaker 2: to say. But art is it's it's already cathartic, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. When you're when you make a
Speaker 2: piece of art, you're you're using your experience to make
Speaker 2: it right everything, but the value of it, the part
Speaker 2: that people are paying you money for, is not about
Speaker 2: your catharist It has nothing to do with you. So
Speaker 2: like my my secret or my my, what I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about is, you know, there's the quality part I told
Speaker 2: you about, but my intent is to make something that
Speaker 2: connects the listener because of the level of service this
Speaker 2: song is providing in their lives. And so you know,
Speaker 2: there's different venues. There's barbecues, there's the car, there's the club.
Speaker 2: A great example. I always tell people because for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: people think I only listen to classical music and shit,
Speaker 2: because whenever I tell people I listen, I listen. I've
Speaker 2: listened to I started listening to classical, right, I do
Speaker 2: listen to classical music, but I love all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2: So I always tell people a great example of a
Speaker 2: song that is of extreme like levels of use is
Speaker 2: back that ass up, right, Oh my god, because well
Speaker 2: we'll use that song till the end of time. Tell me, yeah,
Speaker 2: like Mariah Carey the Christmas song, back that ass up.
Speaker 2: You know, there's just like a couple of songs that
Speaker 2: we consider classics. Oh yeah, I just reader. My other
Speaker 2: point was that people always think music is so good
Speaker 2: from their era, But the fact is we stopped playing
Speaker 2: the ship that's not of use, playing the things that
Speaker 2: aren't good anymore.
Speaker 1: That's real, man. So there's a lot of the because
Speaker 1: that's the thing.
Speaker 3: They'll be.
Speaker 1: They'll be certain sounds that I like when I'm listening
Speaker 1: to them at the time, I get real tired of
Speaker 1: real fast, and I can't listen to any of it.
Speaker 1: Ten years later, fifteen years later, when all like the
Speaker 1: weakest versions of that style have kind of gone away
Speaker 1: and you only have the cream has risen, and it's like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: why did I love this shit?
Speaker 3: Actually? Why did I?
Speaker 1: Why did I not listen to it? It's like, oh, because.
Speaker 2: That's that's how it works, the ones that are impactful,
Speaker 2: and and also that's good, that's great. You said it
Speaker 2: like that because like it's also the ones that really
Speaker 2: capture the sound the best. Yes, you know, like from
Speaker 2: the Ratchet era, we have rack City and Loyal. Those
Speaker 2: two songs are gonna be the representatives of that genre
Speaker 2: in twenty years, even though there is and there's a
Speaker 2: couple more.
Speaker 1: It was great time, I got to be honest, I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: It was great. So yeah, there's like probably five, six, seven,
Speaker 2: maybe ten of them songs. It was a thousand that
Speaker 2: came out, the same thing for the nw Jack sound.
Speaker 1: Same thing for New Jack was tough. Like the growing
Speaker 1: up with new Jack was it was just everywhere and
Speaker 1: it kind of got old for me at the time.
Speaker 1: But going back, you're like, yo, I don't know, man.
Speaker 2: Certain ones that we're always gonna play them. And so
Speaker 2: that's my goal is like to make something like that,
Speaker 2: something that is so useful.
Speaker 1: You have a really unique sound though.
Speaker 2: Man, I know, man, well it was unique in the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I feel like it still is. Like I
Speaker 1: feel like listening even to this record, like it's clear
Speaker 1: like people make music more like you now, but there's
Speaker 1: still something in you doing it and in your songs
Speaker 1: and then you performing them that make them sound original still,
Speaker 1: you know, and unique. But I maybe we can talk
Speaker 1: about your songwriting. Yeah, your structure is come on very
Speaker 1: different than most songwriter structure. Were you trying to play
Speaker 1: with form or was it just like that's just how
Speaker 1: you heard it.
Speaker 2: No, it's very intentional. When I started, you know, there
Speaker 2: were writers I really admired that. I was trying my
Speaker 2: best to write songs like just like everybody else. Well
Speaker 2: my biggest right at the time I actually got signed
Speaker 2: the Underdogs who I actually ended up getting signed to
Speaker 2: where they were kind of like redefining R and B
Speaker 2: at that time. So I was really like studying their
Speaker 2: music hard and it was unbelievable. I couldn't copy because
Speaker 2: I didn't know how you know what I mean. But
Speaker 2: it was certain little things that I was like, I
Speaker 2: like this, I like that. But then I ended up
Speaker 2: going there and being trained in that style so much
Speaker 2: so that it was like, and don't do it any
Speaker 2: other way either. So that was another like final development.
Speaker 2: But when I got there, people were telling me, even
Speaker 2: though Brandy's one of the best singers ever and really
Speaker 2: foundational to my sound and everything. Also, even like the
Speaker 2: people she wrote with, I consider them like Lashawn Daniels,
Speaker 2: for instance. I consider them to be huge influences on
Speaker 2: my writing. But being the kind of person I am,
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear that shit all day. I
Speaker 2: don't want to hear people telling me I sound like
Speaker 2: Brandy all the time because I'm like, what do you?
Speaker 3: What are you?
Speaker 2: What are you saying?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: So I really sat up there for like, and I'm
Speaker 2: still doing it today, Like I'm really like, I was like,
Speaker 2: I want to I want my own sound. It would
Speaker 2: never not have Brandy in it, you know. Like I
Speaker 2: think even while I was consciously developing my sound, that's
Speaker 2: when I discover Imaging Heap and you know, like the
Speaker 2: eighties in general are big, you know. I think that
Speaker 2: was when when humanity really started nailing down what pop
Speaker 2: music really could be. And so that's a big part
Speaker 2: of her style. I can hear too. But when I
Speaker 2: heard Imaging Heap, it was like, Okay, this is what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Sense because you got that real the soul thiss of
Speaker 1: a Brandy with those weird sounds that you might hear,
Speaker 1: and the productions are big, like like like the best
Speaker 1: because I.
Speaker 2: Am from the hood too, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But also that's another funny thing about the Hood experience
Speaker 2: is like gangsters love music. Man, Like I was getting
Speaker 2: a great you know, I was learning a lot about me.
Speaker 2: I think the first person that really, my mom was
Speaker 2: the first person to try to convince me that Prince
Speaker 2: was somebody actually get into. But it was really like
Speaker 2: a bunch of thugs. I was riding around blasting prints
Speaker 2: out of lowriders that I was like, let me check this.
Speaker 1: Outber my dad trying to put me on the DJ
Speaker 1: quick by telling me of the best Prince of hip hop.
Speaker 3: He's just like Prince. It was right.
Speaker 2: He was like, Rhythmalism is one of the best albums
Speaker 2: I ever heard of my whole entire life, hands down,
Speaker 2: including every type of music I've ever heard. That's like
Speaker 2: top five albums for me.
Speaker 1: It's amazing stuff.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I really talk about Dave Hollister as an influence with
Speaker 2: that was a big influence. And he's doing like soul
Speaker 2: gospel kind of singing, and I was really getting into that.
Speaker 2: Michael Franks is a big influence on you know. The
Speaker 2: least people I come in contact are familiar with Michael Franks.
Speaker 2: But I also know some ghetto people that I'm not
Speaker 2: the only one in the hood, mister Franks that listens
Speaker 2: to your music. But you know, I just had all
Speaker 2: these different influences. And basically there's two things one. Singing
Speaker 2: and writing is night and day skills. They don't go together.
Speaker 2: Most of the big writers that have ever lived were
Speaker 2: not great singers. Most of the great singers I know about,
Speaker 2: we're not great writers. So those are two different things
Speaker 2: I had to study, you know, Like my story of
Speaker 2: my singing style is a different path.
Speaker 1: But you wanted to have both, You wanted to have
Speaker 1: singing and songwriter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a choice. You know, you can't choose
Speaker 2: it if you can sing or not, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So I just happened to be at one with it.
Speaker 2: But I love books, and I'm a nerd, so I'm
Speaker 2: into words and tone and writing, and like I was
Speaker 2: already an avid reader, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 2: I was I already was interested in the process of writing,
Speaker 2: like you know, like literary writing. But as far as songwriting,
Speaker 2: before I started really writing songs, my favorite writer was
Speaker 2: probably where it now. Every song I wrote before, including
Speaker 2: my first song, I wrote period. My first song was
Speaker 2: a joke because like, you know, that's all, that's what
Speaker 2: writing was to me. I didn't know it was a job.
Speaker 2: So the only things I ever wrote were like parodies
Speaker 2: like the Hot Boys. I wrote a song called hot
Speaker 2: Breath when I was and uh in high school like that.
Speaker 2: It was just a hot breath, the hot Breath. I
Speaker 2: remember like writing the verses out and everything because I
Speaker 2: love where it. Now.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pause for another quick break and then we'll
Speaker 1: be back with more from James font Leroy. We're back
Speaker 1: with the rest of my conversation with James font Leroy.
Speaker 1: When did songwriting become a thing you knew that you
Speaker 1: could do, like as a career, Like, when did that
Speaker 1: become like I want to do this?
Speaker 2: Well, it was when I found out you could get paid,
Speaker 2: you know what. I'm seen somebody pull up in a
Speaker 2: nice car with a nice outfit on a nice this
Speaker 2: and that, and I was like, what's up, what's going
Speaker 2: on over here? And so that's when I found out
Speaker 2: because I was at a publisher's I was at Universal's
Speaker 2: publishing studio. They had a recording studio, and I had
Speaker 2: actually been there before singing a demo for somebody right
Speaker 2: before I actually had my first like writing session there,
Speaker 2: and I just had no idea about what publishing was,
Speaker 2: the pubishing deals and admin and all this stuff. So
Speaker 2: when I found out what it was, I got on
Speaker 2: the internet and I researched it so thoroughly that when
Speaker 2: I got my first terrible deal, I told my lawyer.
Speaker 2: I was like, Yo, this is bad right, and he
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know the hell you think you are.
Speaker 2: You need to sign that shit. So I actually got
Speaker 2: to make a decision on the spot. I was like,
Speaker 2: do I want to take this bad deal and get
Speaker 2: the opportunities, which I don't suggest other people do that,
Speaker 2: but they ended up working out for me because it
Speaker 2: was worth it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was worth just getting your foot in the door.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it doesn't always work like that. I've seen the
Speaker 2: majority of people in those situations. They end up so
Speaker 2: dejected that they they can't function after they realized because
Speaker 2: everybody has this moment where you realize you signed something
Speaker 2: that wasn't in your best interest. And I remember one
Speaker 2: time talking to my publisher about it, even though knew
Speaker 2: the deal was fucked up when I got it, But
Speaker 2: I remember talking to my publisher about it, and I
Speaker 2: was like, why did you think? I've said this to
Speaker 2: several people in the music business. I said, why do
Speaker 2: you think this is? Okay?
Speaker 1: That's a great question, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean. And the typical answer is, this
Speaker 2: is how it happened to me. This is how it's done,
Speaker 2: which is actually what made me want to start the
Speaker 2: school and get into education and all this other stuff
Speaker 2: I got going on. But my publisher was like, well,
Speaker 2: we didn't know you, and I was like what, And
Speaker 2: so I always since then, I've been like two things. One,
Speaker 2: if you do better business and it turns out bad,
Speaker 2: then you know at least you did your best. If
Speaker 2: you do good business and it turns out well, then
Speaker 2: you just exponentially multiply what you can do with that person.
Speaker 3: And if you just.
Speaker 2: Want to be a criminal, you know, no judgment, but
Speaker 2: rob them in the end, not in the beginning. Why
Speaker 2: are you so dumb if you really think this person's
Speaker 2: worth robbing, why would you steal them their money when
Speaker 2: they have one hundred and fifty thousand versus when they
Speaker 2: have fifteen million. Ye're crazy? H So that that's why
Speaker 2: all your criminals out there, that's a free one.
Speaker 1: Do you think the music industry is fixable?
Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't think it's fixable at all.
Speaker 2: I think it's just business, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like the music part is it's it's not even important.
Speaker 2: And that's evident in the fact that we haven't had
Speaker 2: any new superstars really for the last decade, and it's
Speaker 2: solely because that's not in the best interests of the machine.
Speaker 1: How do you feel, I mean, I'll say, as a
Speaker 1: just as a person who's a fan of music, the
Speaker 1: fact that there's have been no true superstars built over
Speaker 1: the last built or put out or come out or
Speaker 1: come about over the last decade, it's a drag man.
Speaker 2: It is man And basically it's just it just takes
Speaker 2: time because the Internet has been rearranging everything since it
Speaker 2: popped off. Because basically, right now, like you know, you
Speaker 2: have Internet fame, which doesn't translate into international market and
Speaker 2: right now, the label systems have territory partners that they
Speaker 2: can make an act a global priority, meaning like you know,
Speaker 2: their partners in different territories will open up budgets to
Speaker 2: market that person in different territories, which then creates a
Speaker 2: global superstar. Yeah, and so I think that the way
Speaker 2: the Internet is closing all these bridges and gaps, you're
Speaker 2: going to start having people who are recreating the environment
Speaker 2: without the need of that system. And so the labels
Speaker 2: are aware and they figured out a lot of really
Speaker 2: smart Like I'm not angry at the labels, like I
Speaker 2: always hear my collaborators, especially all of us, because all
Speaker 2: of us have much money, we have left, We're making
Speaker 2: millions of dollars, you know what I mean, So I
Speaker 2: don't have emotions about it.
Speaker 1: I just also feel like music's better when there's a
Speaker 1: strong label system.
Speaker 2: But it's alway but like, oh yeah, they don't feel
Speaker 2: any sense of responsibility to the art, which I do.
Speaker 2: So that's a big part of everything I'm doing is
Speaker 2: like I feel because all the people that came before
Speaker 2: me had such an impact on me that I could
Speaker 2: go from zero to traveling the world and having money
Speaker 2: and doing all this, I'm like, who's going to do
Speaker 2: that for the next people? So that's why I'm like
Speaker 2: really working hard to fill in that gap and really
Speaker 2: trying to support and work with other people that feel
Speaker 2: like that, which is almost every collaborator I had that
Speaker 2: people name when they name who I worked with. It's
Speaker 2: a bunch of people who are also really concerned with
Speaker 2: preserving the art, you know, like Bruno is one of
Speaker 2: the best examples, Like every superstar though, like all the
Speaker 2: people that are on my list of people that I
Speaker 2: worked with, one thing I noticed they all have in
Speaker 2: common is they're all like music historians, every single one
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Justin Timberlake, he's one of them, absolutely, Beyonce, Beyonce.
Speaker 2: Like just expert. They could all teach Ivy League classes
Speaker 2: on music history, all of them.
Speaker 1: What does that bring to writing sessions or recording sessions?
Speaker 2: Wisdom? You know, like knowing what works and knowing the
Speaker 2: rules enough to recreate them or break them or bend
Speaker 2: them or whatever. And you just have to do that.
Speaker 2: If you want to make something new, you have to
Speaker 2: understand what came before it. Yeah, that's not a super
Speaker 2: popular thing on the planet Earth, but the people that
Speaker 2: know that have advantage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's starting to change. It feels like this hip
Speaker 1: hop fiftieth thing has been cool. It's been great to
Speaker 1: see people embrace artists that I think before we're just
Speaker 1: kind of aligned as like it's like that's old This
Speaker 1: old school's wax it's you know, it's like, but it
Speaker 1: feels like there's a lot of good will going towards
Speaker 1: our legends these days, and so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see that too, But that's just really that's
Speaker 2: that's the mainstream and public perception. But the truth is,
Speaker 2: you know, like whoever the biggest young rapper, like a
Speaker 2: TikTok guy or whoever you want to name, they don't
Speaker 2: have as successful a global touring career as the Wu
Speaker 2: Tang clan, you know what I mean. So even when
Speaker 2: we were all not looking the world, because even the world,
Speaker 2: we all have this tendency to look through the lens
Speaker 2: of America. But the fact is that you're not going
Speaker 2: to find too many of these TikTok guys doing global
Speaker 2: dates versus these old guys they've been out here getting
Speaker 2: this money. Yeah, I think he's good that the Internet
Speaker 2: is peeling away all sorts of machines and industry's ability
Speaker 2: to tell you that something is one way when it's
Speaker 2: really nothing.
Speaker 1: And I also think too, like to an earlier point,
Speaker 1: you're twenty years in just about releasing your debut album,
Speaker 1: there really is no timeline anymore. Like the fact, like
Speaker 1: if we dropped a really good album this year, people
Speaker 1: would bang it just as hard as right as that.
Speaker 1: It's by nods these last right like some of the
Speaker 1: best music NAS has ever done. It sounds as relevant
Speaker 1: as ever. People loved it as much as anything new
Speaker 1: that came out, and he.
Speaker 2: Boy was nominated for Partucer the year off.
Speaker 1: Of that deserved. Hell, yeah, deserved.
Speaker 2: He should get it every year. That's my boy. He's
Speaker 2: on fire.
Speaker 1: I talked to him a few months ago just because
Speaker 1: I was so I was so pumped on those NOS records.
Speaker 2: I met him to day zero. I met him when
Speaker 2: I was trying to get the publishing did with the Underdogs.
Speaker 2: That's when we met, so I know him from my
Speaker 2: whole entire.
Speaker 1: Was he also trying to get a deal there?
Speaker 3: That's a funny story.
Speaker 2: Actually, I don't know if he talks about the fact
Speaker 2: that it used to be hit boys. Did he tell
Speaker 2: you that, Yeah, it used to be two of them. No, Ill,
Speaker 2: it used to be two hit boys and one of
Speaker 2: them left to what we thought was signing to deal
Speaker 2: with the Underdogs, which ended up to be actually not
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we did talk about his his initial bad
Speaker 1: We all.
Speaker 2: Were trying to everybody. Basically, it was like, it was
Speaker 2: in this building that now Diane Warren owns that Babyface
Speaker 2: used to own that used to be Solar even Dick
Speaker 2: Griffy right, yep, it's on Hollywood and Kowana Wow. And
Speaker 2: so the underdogs had the third floor because they have
Speaker 2: a relationship Babyface with subt. I shout out to Babyface,
Speaker 2: it's one of the greats. Why I consider him the top.
Speaker 2: I consider me the top if I'm being totally honest.
Speaker 3: But if I'm taking myself, I think you need twenty
Speaker 3: more years.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: I love you know.
Speaker 2: I talked to about this. I said, yo, man, I
Speaker 2: can never be Babyface, Like, what's how can I even
Speaker 2: do it? And he was like, he said, really, how
Speaker 2: you need to think about it is that because I've
Speaker 2: been doing this so long, there's things that I've done
Speaker 2: that you just can't do. He was like, you can't
Speaker 2: work with Whitney Houston, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 2: you can't We can't match each other on that in
Speaker 2: that regard. But he was like, the same thing will
Speaker 2: be true for you one day.
Speaker 1: Twenty years though. Beyonce and Rihanna, they're gonna be the
Speaker 1: way we think of Whitney now which is like.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like, so you know I'm
Speaker 2: Babyface now Babyface. Yeah, I'm gonna let you hold on
Speaker 2: to the name because you earned it.
Speaker 1: Did you always love his music?
Speaker 2: Absolutely as an artist before I knew he was writing
Speaker 2: everything under the sun. Who was the first person I
Speaker 2: heard about doing a catalog sales? So that's how you
Speaker 2: even learned that that existed. And that was probably sixteen
Speaker 2: seventeen years ago, and he recouped it, which is just
Speaker 2: that's not even a thing today. So you know, statistically
Speaker 2: he's we can't argue if he's as far as uh writing,
Speaker 2: he's my number one.
Speaker 1: I know, as far as my taste, he's got to
Speaker 1: be one of the great songwriters of all time.
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, I think he's number one, especially just from
Speaker 2: writing standpoint. But then, like you know, my top guys
Speaker 2: are baby Face. It's me, It's me five times, but
Speaker 2: it's baby Face. What's six to ten, it's baby Face,
Speaker 2: Stevie Wonder, John Mayor. I feel like we're not taking John.
Speaker 1: Way to say I'm gonna keep keep going, Wenna, we
Speaker 1: can go back.
Speaker 2: So baby Face, Stevie Wonder, John Mayor, Prince And then
Speaker 2: I'll say Diane Warren.
Speaker 1: All right, I love John Mayer. We go go back
Speaker 1: to that? Is that in order? No, okay, that's good.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean Stevie, I love baby Face, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to put.
Speaker 2: Well, Stevie Wonder got a bunch of songs about singing ship.
Speaker 2: So who could be who can compete with that? How
Speaker 2: we're gonna beat that one? You just you're not You're
Speaker 2: not going to get to that level of creativity.
Speaker 1: What is it about John Mayer that you feel like?
Speaker 1: Put the other the other four? I mean, I love
Speaker 1: but I'm.
Speaker 2: Telling you John Mayer is on the same level. He's
Speaker 2: one of the best writers ever on earth, to ever live, period,
Speaker 2: and he's also an amazing singer and arranger and musician.
Speaker 2: He's like unbelievable. I would say, you think you got a.
Speaker 1: Song as good as anything on the Waiting to Excel soundtrack?
Speaker 2: I think it's more than one. Yeah, yeah, like Stop
Speaker 2: this Train?
Speaker 1: You know that song Stop the Trains Continuum?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I don't. I don't know what what song we
Speaker 2: could confidently say is better than that song? You would
Speaker 2: have to be as good as that song. I'm just
Speaker 2: telling you, as one of the greatest writers of all.
Speaker 1: Time as one, two, five, Yeah, that song, it's that's
Speaker 1: just that's it's a good song.
Speaker 2: It's a great song. It's it's a song that captures
Speaker 2: the human condition in a way that's almost impossible to
Speaker 2: do in a digestible format. It's relatable, it's introspective, it's
Speaker 2: musically incredible, it's proof that he's one of the greatest
Speaker 2: writers of all times.
Speaker 1: It's definitely one of the great albums.
Speaker 2: That whole album, I mean, his first album, What Come.
Speaker 1: On Continuum has got to be his top.
Speaker 2: Contenue is definitely best album. But his first album, he
Speaker 2: was letting us know right there. He's still on every song.
Speaker 2: The first one I heard was the first single that
Speaker 2: was by these in Wonderland was the second one, if
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, because the first one was I Want
Speaker 2: to Run through the halls of my high school. So
Speaker 2: that one I was like, that got and this is
Speaker 2: before I was even writing, and that got my attention,
Speaker 2: like what's going on here? But then when I heard
Speaker 2: your Body's Wonderland, I was like, so, you know what,
Speaker 2: I want to add him to my list of influences
Speaker 2: because I really think about how he writes as like
Speaker 2: a great example of all these things I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: as far as like adhering to the examples that all
Speaker 2: these grades have set before us and then doing it
Speaker 2: his own way. I think he's up there.
Speaker 1: What about you as a guitar player, Oh.
Speaker 2: I suck, dude, Like I just loved the guitar. I'm
Speaker 2: so in love with the guitar, so I've been playing
Speaker 2: it now for a long time. But I'll never forgive man.
Speaker 2: I did this show because when I first I taught
Speaker 2: myself the guitar as an adult, and I just had
Speaker 2: it in the car with me and the band with
Speaker 2: me everywhere. I'm just strumming it and fucking with it.
Speaker 2: And then I wrote this project called String Theory because
Speaker 2: I'm a nerd, and I performed it at this this
Speaker 2: venue called No Name that was on Fairfax back in
Speaker 2: the day. And I don't even know if Robert Cavallo
Speaker 2: remembers this. This is my I love him to death,
Speaker 2: like I just talked to I went to his birthday
Speaker 2: last year and I told him the Dookie Green Day
Speaker 2: poster is the only music poster I ever had on
Speaker 2: my wall in my life.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the only music poster I ever had. I
Speaker 2: was a big fan of Green Day and a bunch
Speaker 2: of things at that time. But I don't even know
Speaker 2: if he knows this, because I met him several times he.
Speaker 1: Produced that record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to his house when I first started
Speaker 2: writing with Justin Lake and we had a funny exchange there.
Speaker 2: But he walked up to me at the show. I
Speaker 2: don't even know if your members of this, but after
Speaker 2: I perform my this is my first time performing live
Speaker 2: playing the guitar, and he walks up to me. He's like,
Speaker 2: you don't know who I am, but I'm a pretty
Speaker 2: successful rock producer and I can tell you don't know
Speaker 2: how to play the guitar. And I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: oh shit, I'm caught. And he was like, and I
Speaker 2: really wanna tell you that you're a genius. He was like,
Speaker 2: I can tell you don't know what you're doing, but
Speaker 2: the fact that you figured this out ay and and
Speaker 2: how creative the arrangements are and how you're just doing
Speaker 2: all this stuff, he was like, you're a genius. This
Speaker 2: is insane, like that you just did that and you
Speaker 2: don't even know how to play the guitar. And so
Speaker 2: That's kind of how I feel about it. It's really like,
Speaker 2: can't really play anything, But I just am lucky to
Speaker 2: have the ability to comprehend why I love what I
Speaker 2: love about music. And then even though I can't tell
Speaker 2: you the numbers of the root, Nope, so their progression
Speaker 2: or none of these other really important vitals that you
Speaker 2: need to casef a musician. But I know how it's
Speaker 2: supposed to sound, and I'm creative.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't even know if it's how it was
Speaker 1: supposed to Like you play something, I don't even know
Speaker 1: if that's how it's supposed to sound. It just sounds
Speaker 1: like there's stuffing on you on the record you just
Speaker 1: put out today, like Magic, where I'm like, what is that?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: What is like? You know, it's like working Man was
Speaker 3: listening to it.
Speaker 2: We were picking songs for the show. I just didn't
Speaker 2: I can tell. They were like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: But it's crazy, Like but it's like it makes no sense,
Speaker 1: but it's absolutely beautiful and somehow it fits into the
Speaker 1: song and you're like, I don't know how he made
Speaker 1: Like I don't know how you made that song out
Speaker 1: of that riff or how you fit that riff into
Speaker 1: that song well out which wherever way it went, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's observing. Man. I worked with John Mayer
Speaker 2: a bunch of times, so I was great. I was
Speaker 2: already already felt how I felt before I even met him,
Speaker 2: but then I was able to see him work too,
Speaker 2: so that showed me some things about how to what
Speaker 2: to do with the guitar. And then also this producer
Speaker 2: named Mike Elizondo and Mike Alzando I've worked with so
Speaker 2: many times over the years. But even though his biggest
Speaker 2: hit is in the Club probably, but he's like an
Speaker 2: incredible rock producer. Like he's so so like serious about
Speaker 2: all the genres he does. He can do anything. But
Speaker 2: like I worked with him in a bunch of sessions
Speaker 2: that were like rock leaning, you know, like it was
Speaker 2: pop rock or like just rock stuff. So I got
Speaker 2: to watch him making you know, rock music the way
Speaker 2: he imagines it, and it was just certain things I
Speaker 2: learned from watching both of those guys that I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: so I don't need to really be good, I just
Speaker 2: need to know how to do it, and you know,
Speaker 2: like do what I'm trying to do with with everything
Speaker 2: I've learned in singing and writing and production because I've
Speaker 2: really been producing longer than both of those other things.
Speaker 2: Like people don't know that, but I know how to
Speaker 2: just get it to feel the way I wanted to feel.
Speaker 2: And then once I get this feeling, then now I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now back to what I was saying earlier. Now this
Speaker 2: song is abuse, this is creating the feeling.
Speaker 1: And that's why I was saying that, like, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of people have copied your style,
Speaker 1: but it's something that hits very different when you're doing
Speaker 1: it or when it's you're thinking there's an emotion in it.
Speaker 1: That's just that doesn't translate to someone who's trying to
Speaker 1: just do a song that sounded like one of yours
Speaker 1: is a really like a it's like something that was
Speaker 1: captured in the room. It's like documenting something in the room.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's necessarily. There's a few.
Speaker 2: Things that the people that study me, even though I'm
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, you know what I mean. It's not
Speaker 2: a secret, but it's just a few things that one
Speaker 2: thing is it's my style. While complex, there's some entry
Speaker 2: points that are just not hard. You know what I
Speaker 2: mean because like that it's supposed to be something that
Speaker 2: people can can enjoy. It's not supposed to be like
Speaker 2: you know, just like music for the sake of for
Speaker 2: other musicians, like for people been Also there's just things
Speaker 2: that they everybody hasn't picked up on yet, you know,
Speaker 2: Like there's dynamic stuff, which I got this from. I
Speaker 2: heard prince An shot it. Shot is a huge influence.
Speaker 2: Thiss is shot it tattooed on my hand. Yeah, shade
Speaker 2: as Mary, It's amazing, So that's another huge influence. But
Speaker 2: like Shota in print and like kind of singing a
Speaker 2: and also a lot of singers can't even do this
Speaker 2: to emulate it, but like singing a low octave and
Speaker 2: a high octave that creates a certain kind of feeling
Speaker 2: that I noticed people haven't picked up on that yet
Speaker 2: thinking of the singer as a character, you know. Like
Speaker 2: I noticed this on the song Village Ghetto Land by
Speaker 2: Stevie Wondering, which we all now know he loves classical
Speaker 2: music and that's why he was doing all these different
Speaker 2: classical leaning things. But when I heard that song, he's
Speaker 2: singing with like a slight British accent on the song
Speaker 2: and So what that taught me was that, you know,
Speaker 2: because that why I instantly knew why he did it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's classical music. It's already it's interesting because
Speaker 2: you're talking about the life, the ghetto life experience with
Speaker 2: the backdrop of classical So that's a lesson right there,
Speaker 2: because that's interesting. So that's a lesson that everybody needs
Speaker 2: to understand. And then the other thing is that he
Speaker 2: put himself into a character. He changed how he's pronouncing
Speaker 2: the words, his robrato, all these other things. So I'm like,
Speaker 2: you can do that on every song. Every song, Every
Speaker 2: every song has a different intent, and so like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so like you know, I literally change how I sing,
Speaker 2: how I pronounce words, how if I'm singing louder, I change,
Speaker 2: like in the arrangement. Different harmonies might have different characters,
Speaker 2: but for sure, when I'm doing the performance, I'm acting,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like you're you're acting. I
Speaker 2: think of the whole thing in terms of movies, the
Speaker 2: whole and everything about my music is is I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about cinematic dynamics, special effects, building it up, conflict. I
Speaker 2: always used to Hangover as an example of what I'm
Speaker 2: thinking when I'm writing, like in The Hangover, what a
Speaker 2: lot of people do in their writing, like if we're
Speaker 2: thinking about that scene and the Hangover the next day
Speaker 2: is they're like they'll have a song called smoking chair
Speaker 2: with a chicken on it, right, and it'll be like,
Speaker 2: there's a chair with smoking a chicken and right. And
Speaker 2: what the Hangover is doing is when everybody wakes up,
Speaker 2: the camera pants around the room and you just see
Speaker 2: the aftermath of what happened. And then for the rest
Speaker 2: of the movie you're finding everybody's trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what happened. And so in a song, while you can't,
Speaker 2: that's a type of song. There's instruction songs like back
Speaker 2: that ass up pretty clear.
Speaker 1: What you need to do.
Speaker 2: But then when you're making a cinemat when you're creating
Speaker 2: a scene, it's better to describe the scene to get
Speaker 2: the point across. So like, as far as the performance
Speaker 2: is concerned, that's part of it. That's like part of
Speaker 2: the scene is I'm describing the scene to you because
Speaker 2: you can't see it most you know, unless there's a video.
Speaker 2: And then I'm acting it out in as particular character,
Speaker 2: so you feel emotion. It's supposed to invoke.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's incredible, And that's a great point about village Ghettoland.
Speaker 1: I never the song would be a lot less interesting
Speaker 1: to be. I mean, it'll be a good song, but
Speaker 1: to be way less interesting if you didn't perform it
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, it's an incredible lesson to take from that.
Speaker 2: It's something that the listener doesn't need to know, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. It's it's something that is for
Speaker 2: It's a detail that's for the person that wants to
Speaker 2: learn how to communicate at the highest level with their music.
Speaker 2: And so I used that on almost every single song.
Speaker 2: There's a song on this album it's Slay.
Speaker 1: On a Slay song.
Speaker 2: On the second verse of that song, and I actually
Speaker 2: I wrote the first half of that song in a
Speaker 2: songwriting class at my school. What Yeah, some of my
Speaker 2: students watching me write the first half of it.
Speaker 3: I was trying to teach them, Yeah, while I.
Speaker 2: Wrote that song, and then the second verse, since I'm
Speaker 2: already like in education mode when I'm thinking about the song,
Speaker 2: I literally sang the first and second line in two
Speaker 2: different characters. First line, how I'm singing it is different,
Speaker 2: how I'm pronouncing the words is different. You know, It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot more not articulate, but like it's
Speaker 2: it's more sophisticated. The first character and then the second one,
Speaker 2: I literally have like a Southern not as real Southern accent,
Speaker 2: but it's like, you know, a lot more draw yeah,
Speaker 2: like just a different person. But you know.
Speaker 1: It's the second line, on the second line of the
Speaker 1: second I'm listen for that again. I love that song.
Speaker 1: I didn't even pick up on that.
Speaker 2: I can play it right now.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so subtle but different guys.
Speaker 2: Wow, same voice, but the first one, I'm articulating the words.
Speaker 2: I'm singing softly. It's you know, it's a complicated yeah, right,
Speaker 2: And in the second line, I'm just a head back
Speaker 2: to together.
Speaker 1: Wow. Man, that's a great lesson.
Speaker 2: Thanks. The same thing I talked about in the beginning,
Speaker 2: about like when I first started and I was really
Speaker 2: focused on creating my own style. I'm still doing that.
Speaker 2: I'm still you know, like changing every song is a
Speaker 2: new opportunity for me to see what can I do,
Speaker 2: What did I do before that I liked, what did
Speaker 2: I try that didn't work? And then what can I
Speaker 2: add in now that I haven't done before? So I'm
Speaker 2: still trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Man. Well, thanks for kicking it, man, appreciate it. The
Speaker 1: beautiful record.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's like compiled finally into one like listenable,
Speaker 1: digestible thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you don't have to switch when you're running
Speaker 2: or whatever. That's what I hear all the time. It
Speaker 2: was like, I'm tired of I'm on a treadmill. I'm
Speaker 2: going between sounds. I can't relate to that. I'm not
Speaker 2: on treadmill, but I got you, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Thanks to James fontler Way for chatting about his songwriting career,
Speaker 1: your and his debut album, The Warmest Winter Ever. You
Speaker 1: can hear it along with our other favorite James Fauntleroy
Speaker 1: Penk songs on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our
Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
Speaker 1: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 1: is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 1: Our theme Music's back, any beats. I'm justin Richmond.