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