WEBVTT - Ep 52: Chilly Gonzales 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:14.680 Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats. 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:29.080 Hey, good evening everybody, and thank you for downloading episode 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:33.479 fifty two of the Loud and Quiet interview podcast Midnight Chats. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.519 It's midnight, it's Thursday, and here we are again with 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:43.199 another episode. This is episode two of season six, or 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.640 series six, as us Brits say. We've only just gone 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.159 to the series model. We were just putting them all out, 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.040 but we're on a series now. Episode one of this 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.160 series was last week. If you missed that episode that 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.680 was with Interpol, Greg did that one? This week is 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.400 my week. My name's Stuart Stubbs and I am the 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.440 editor of Loud and Quiet magazine. Now, a lot of 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.160 people that listen to the podcast might not know that 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.280 Loud and Quite is also a music magazine. So and 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.479 we're terrible at plugging it. We don't mention it enough, 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.560 or at least we feel that we don't. So we're 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:21.399 going to try to plug it a little bit. So 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.120 if if you are unfamiliar with that side of what 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.240 we do, please do check it out. Loud and Quiet 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.200 dot com is where you can order a copy of 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.760 not just our latest issue, but old issues. There's one 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.440 hundred and twenty four that we've done over the last 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.119 fourteen years or so, so please do check it out. 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.080 If you like the podcast, you may all like the 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.560 magazine as well. It's pretty much a print version of 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.960 what this podcast is. It features a lot of the 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.360 same artists or similar artists. But seeing as we're here 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.280 for the podcast, now, let me introduce tonight's guest. Chile 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.120 Gonzalez currently lives in Cologne in Germany, but he's original 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:05.920 from Montreal in Canada. The story of Chile, or Gonzo 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.160 as he likes to be called, and how he introduces 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.920 himself to people, is he was a band guy essentially. 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.240 He had a band called Son spelled Son, and they 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.680 were doing pretty well. They signed a big record deal 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.400 in nineteen ninety five, and as far as he was concerned, 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.000 that was kind of that his future was mapped out. 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.640 But it didn't work out for him. It wasn't what 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.400 he wanted it to be. So in nineteen ninety nine 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:37.160 he became Chile Gonzales essentially, and he pretty much reverted 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.440 back to his roots as a virtuoso piano player and 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.880 also pursued his love of rap music. So since then 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.320 he's pretty much straddled those two worlds. Sometimes he makes 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.240 a record that is full of beautiful piano, and sometimes 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.320 he makes a record that's like a rap record. And 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.840 he's done loads of other things on top of this. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:05.600 He writes songs for a lot of other people, including Feist, Peaches. 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.680 He's written songs for Drake. He won a Grammy for 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.359 his work on Random Access Memories by Daft Punk. He's 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.880 been in a film He's what else has he done? 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.880 He's broken a world record for the longest ever solo performance. 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.960 These are all things that I probably should have spoken 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.960 to him about, and we do touch on a couple 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.079 of them, but as is the way with midnight chats, 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:37.080 we kind of just drifted from one topic to the next. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.640 I really enjoyed talking to Chile, and I wanted to 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.640 meet him since I spoke to him on the phone. 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.240 Last year. We did a cover feature with him and 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.720 Jarvis Cocker about an album that they put out last 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.520 year called Room twenty nine, which was a concept record 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.520 they wrote at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, the 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.520 hotel there, and I didn't get to meet Chilly at 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.480 that point because he was back home in Cologne. I 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.960 had to speak to him on the phone. I'm glad 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.680 that we managed to get him. I managed to get 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.160 into a room with him and talk to him. He's 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.560 he's an energizing guy, and I hope you get that 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.279 from this. He's got a new record that came out 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:23.960 two weeks ago called Solo Piano three. It's essentially what 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.919 it says on the tin. It's the sound of a 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.919 piano and it's the third record that he's done like that. 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:31.880 It's the final one he says that he's going to 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.000 do of just him and piano. It's a beautiful record. 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.800 If if you're listening to Midnight Chats at midnight or 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.960 late at night, then that is a great record to 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.080 play around this time. I will leave you now with 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.200 myself and Chili Gonzales. We will be back next week. 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.760 We have another great guest next week. I won't say 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.040 who it is, but I think we've got some really 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:59.640 good people coming up on season or series six of 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.359 Midnight Chats. For now, though, thank you for listening to 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:18.159 episode fifty two with Chili Gonzales. 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.200 And very different after dark, you know, and so you're 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.719 gonna get a different side as opposed to a morning 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.760 interview where it would be you know, a whole other ballgame, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.599 whole different You know, my guard is down. Yeah, the 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.880 intimacy level has turned up. We're in front of a fireplace, 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:45.080 We're on a bear skin rug. 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:46.320 Yeah, we've got pipes. 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.560 We've got pipes, and we're both wearing dressing gowns. 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.159 Of course, so this is gonna I'm not sure what 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:54.520 number of the podcasters will be at this point in time. 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.800 We've recorded fifty of these, but I think you are 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.320 the first person we've had on who is a Guinness 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.240 Book World record holder. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.240 Well former, I'm sad it's been broken since. Yeah, I 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.960 played for twenty seven hours and change back in two 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.919 thousand and nine. Yeah, the records were broken pretty frequently, 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.240 so I believe just a few years later I became 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.359 aware of a I believe it was like a sitar 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.839 player because I had the record for the longest solo concert. 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.679 It wasn't the piano specific. Guinness determined that you can't 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.320 have a separate record for every instrument, you know, so 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.960 it was the longest solo concert that I had the 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:40.240 record for, and that was broken by a mile. I mean, 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.000 this guitar player went like thirty eight hours plus or something. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.799 WHOA, Okay, so it's kind of out of reach maybe 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:46.200 for a while. 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:47.880 But don't you think a guitar player has an unfair 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.799 advantage because it's like it's kind of trancel like music 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.400 to begin with. You know, I play like miniatures, you know, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:56.279 I play like two and a half three minute long 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.880 pop songs on the piano essentially. So I thought, well, 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.400 he's probably used to just like you know, zoning out, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.839 zoning out and playing for hours and hours and hours. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.480 For all we know, the audience might have zoned out, 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:10.040 so he might have stopped for an hour. 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.760 They might have just thought, well, silence his music, as 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.000 John Cage taught us. So yeah, you know, we start 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:17.760 to get into very abstract territory. 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:19.680 It's early to go there. 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.800 There was a provision in the Guinness World Record kind 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.640 of contract, and it was very hard to define, but 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.760 it said something like you have to perform what can 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.880 be considered universally as music. You know, there was because 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.440 what they want to avoid is some like maybe conceptual 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:39.480 artists just going ding ding ding ding ding ding ding 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.440 for twenty eight hours and saying, oh no, that's music 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.440 which counts and that's an argument. What is music is 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:47.600 a whole other question. So Guinness sort of had to 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.040 put some provision in there to say, look, it has 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.680 to be like what most people would consider to be music, 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.160 otherwise we're not going to certify it. 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.960 So when you did, you did twenty seven hours. What 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.840 was the record that you were beating? Can okay? 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.200 I only added an hour to it? I mean, you 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.600 know it was it was more like, you know, it 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:07.600 just felt good. Okay, there was twenty six, I'll do 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.400 twenty seven, you know, inched over, inched over the finish line? 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:13.880 What made you want to do it? Can you remember? 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:14.960 What was it that might you think? 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.720 Ego? Ego? I mean basically, at that point I was 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.679 coming off of a bit of a botched album cycle, 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.160 an album called Soft Power where I decided to sort 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.240 of sing and sort of pay tribute to the sort 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.480 of yacht rock, soft rock sensibility of my very very 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.960 early years. At that point, I was really obsessed with 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:36.320 you know, what music did you hear before you have 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.360 the self consciousness of taste? And for me that was 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.480 you know, Beg's Billy Joel, the stuff that my sister liked, 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.600 the stuff that when I was just you know, six 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.920 or seven years old, just like seeing on the TV 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.000 for the first time. Uh, And I was sort of like, 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.360 let me get closer to that, let me get closer 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:59.160 to the real DNA of my musical being pre taste, 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:05.160 pre self image, pre you know, choosing the musical taste 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.520 based on sort of defining yourself against your older brother 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.839 or whatever that moment. You're just an innocent, naive sponge. 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.560 And what I was absorbing was this seventies soft rock, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:19.480 what I would call now, you know, music of the 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.880 elite in a way, you know, long studio sessions lasting 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:30.240 months and months and months, perfection orchestras, beautiful performances by 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:35.320 session musicians, all that stuff. And unfortunately I didn't feel 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.000 like I could just stand behind that album, and so 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.920 I kind of, in retrospect, might have been self sabotaging 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.720 it a bit. And the way I presented the album 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.560 in terms of promotion and being on stage was sort 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.520 of working against maybe that naivete that I was looking 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.440 for when I recorded the album. So it was a 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:58.080 very weird mixed message, I think, and some people didn't 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.240 know if it was literally a joke album or whether 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.560 it just was sort of a misplaced sort of combination 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.800 of presentation and content. But whatever the case, I was frustrated, 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.520 and I felt like I had distanced myself from what 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.439 really makes me unique. And I was kind of looking 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:23.800 for some gesture for myself that would sort of jolt 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.720 me awake in a strange sense. And I think I 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.080 saw something about Guinness World Record, and I remembered how 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:32.800 I loved those books when I was a kid, and 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.120 seeing the guy with two hundred cigarettes in his mouth 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.600 and all that stuff, the guy with long fingernails, all 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.240 those famous Guinness World records, I thought, oh, this is 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.079 kind of like brings back the sort of musical athlete 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.040 part of what I do and a sort of surreal 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:54.000 extreme performance that maybe only Chili Gonzalez really could do. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.040 And so I just sort of put that show together 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.439 and decided to go for it. And all the operation 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:02.160 that I should have been doing I didn't really end 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.600 up doing because I ended up doing promotion. But what 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.320 keeps you going through twenty seven hours, it's ego. I 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.080 just couldn't do it now because I don't feel the 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.839 same need to press reset on my career. I feel 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:19.160 like my expectations and the reality are in harmony. So 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.920 right now I think, oh my godness, playing twenty seven hour. 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:23.360 I mean, you know, I played two and a half 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.160 hour three hour concerts semi regularly, but to really go 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.160 all the way and do something so so extreme it 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.160 can only be a product of ego. 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.760 What are the actual rules of that record? Is it 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.800 that you allowed a certain amount of intervals or did 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.040 you literally just have to play? Is there like a 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.360 limit on the gaps between the songs when a song 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.320 stops and when you have to stop playing again? Is 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:48.640 that all? 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:50.560 There is a limit on the gap, And I of 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.360 course would play with that, you know, I would tell 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:53.960 the people in the audience, or of course, you know, 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.320 to make it a bit meta, I would say, you know, 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.959 all right, guys, we have fifteen seconds. Nobody clap for 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.720 fifteen seconds. That's to the limit, you know. Let me 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.640 squeeze out as many seconds as I can. So it 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:06.640 was fun to play with those with those limits. I 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.800 also could take five minutes an hour or accumulate them. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.079 So the way I worked it out is because I, 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.520 as I said, three hour concert is fairly regular occurrence 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.880 for me. In that sort of Springsteen esque approach to 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.560 an all enveloping concert that begins usually in pure music 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.680 and my piano repertoire, and then slowly cycles through some 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.160 master classes and then ends up with the rap material, 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.160 and then give some lessons, get some people to come 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.880 on stage and give music lessons, and then bring out 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:38.640 some of my other musicians, and then we take it 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.320 to a sort of rolling boil. And that three hour 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.880 concert was basically the unit of the Guinness World Record 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.040 Concert times nine, and I took a fifteen minute break 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.199 between each of those three hour units. Okay, that was 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.199 the way I conceived it. So after having done five 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.960 of those, I was like, okay, five three hour concerts down, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.520 you know, and four to go. 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.120 So what did you do off the twenty seven? So 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.160 you finished, you decide, You get to the end and 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.079 you go right, I feel I've done enough. I think 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:08.360 you went just over that's right. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:10.960 I went eleven minutes past twenty seven, Yeah, exactly, and 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.360 then my body gave out. I think it was like 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.200 you make a deal with yourself in a way. Like 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.800 I said, it's so much to do with ego and adrenaline. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.800 It's not really about what is the actual physical body 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.560 capable of. It's more about what can the brain push 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.120 the body to do that the brain needs. So when 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.600 twenty seven hours came along, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna, 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.000 I'm going, I'm going further. This is going to be 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.640 even more extreme, you know, I can't stop. Yeah. And 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:37.800 then honestly, seven or eight minutes after, I was like, 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.120 oh no, no, no, no, my body is really sending me them. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.120 Everything started to hurt. I start to cramp up. And 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.000 it was because I had made a deal with myself 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.120 for these twenty seven hours, and I wrapped it up 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.400 three four minutes afterwards. I think it was twenty seven 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:56.160 eleven finally, and so my secret wish to go like 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.000 twenty eight maybe twenty nine and just just make me people, 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.280 Oh my god, you can't stop. It didn't quite manage 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.280 it does the the contract was due. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:09.120 Yeah, did you end in a kind of like really 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.000 elaborate way or did you just kind of collapse on 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:12.520 the keys? 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.120 Well, my team came out and were spreading confetti at 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.400 twenty seven hours, and then they kind of stayed on 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.160 stage for those eleven minutes, and I believe I finished 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.440 with my piece Chilli and f Minor, which was the 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.920 first piece on my first album, which felt like a 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.760 nice way to sort of wrap it up. And I 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:30.960 remember having sort of one arm in the air and 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.680 just sort of playing some crazy cadenza with my left hand. 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.400 But yeah, it was it was, it was all a 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:37.920 blur at that. 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.560 Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, obviously that's something in 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.480 a really extreme example, but it does play into your 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.280 approach to concerts anyway. I mean last year when we 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.160 spoke on the phone for the magazine, we were talking 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:56.240 about how you like to play with the perception of 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.080 what is a what is a gig and what is 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.600 a show, and kind of yes, with the parameters of 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.080 a gig, you don't want to just play normal. You 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.600 don't play normal gigs anyway, do you. I guess the 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.760 story that you told me that I found really funny 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.960 is how you during your show you'll do a pop 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.480 the pop master cast element of it where you kind 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.400 of deconstruct a pop song, and you told me a 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:23.040 story about how you would at a particular show you 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.760 play You've got you had a string quartet and you 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.840 got them to play a section of eleanor Rigby. But 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.600 you at the end of that you kind of said 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.600 to the audience, well, you'll all know that song that 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.240 was Elizabeth Ridley by the Rolling Stones, and then you 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:43.600 carry on and explain about and deconstruct that song and 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:45.160 just carry on and just carry. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.440 I mean, I guess it's that's just pure trolling. 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:49.840 Yeah, exactly, Yeah, it's yes. 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.280 So in that moment, I guess I'm not content to 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.560 quite let it go. The masterclass would already be quite 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.000 entertaining for people, I think in that moment, because I'm 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.200 sort of bringing the curtain back, you know, and I 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.280 have the quartet there to make it to illustrate, like, 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.000 listen to the rhythmic way that the strings are being 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.480 used here. This is more using the string quartet as 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.560 a rhythm section than as just some lovely chords and 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.680 some you know, melancholy moods as strings are commonly used. 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:23.320 And it's true that, you know, Paul McCartney was kind 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.040 of a visionary for being able to think, Okay, this 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.720 is a pop song, but it's going to have a 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.480 string quartet instead of drums based guitard. That's already kind 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.280 of you know, I'm already ahead, so to speak. And 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.360 it's true that I have this tendency to want to 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.960 sort of just just change the frame one more time. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.320 And that's yes, the source of sort of wanting to 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.320 mislabel it and to almost in that moment when they think, Wow, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.680 this guy's a real expert of music, he's a real 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.720 font of knowledge. He really must know his stuff, and 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:58.000 in that moment they go, oh, come on, and some 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.640 of course believe it. You know, I I probably told 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:02.480 you on the phone. You know, I'll get messages on 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.280 Facebook where people say, great show. But just so you know, 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:11.200 here's a YouTube video you did. Mislabel it And yeah, 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.320 I guess I always feel like there's always this extra 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:16.800 little frame you can change at the end. And that's 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.160 maybe thinking a little bit more like a comedian does, 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.200 where they sort of have a setup of a joke 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.480 and the punchline often involves you sort of having to 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:29.880 revise your feeling about that story right at the very end, 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.040 And maybe that's what that is. The punchline isn't to 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:37.000 actually hear the quartet play eleanor Rigby. The punchline is 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.880 the musical genius mislabeling it wrong. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.800 I like the fact that it's that is kind of 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.640 it's almost it's a joke for you. It's a joke 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.120 for one, in a way, isn't it because you did 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.000 that to kind of miss lady on it and and 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:53.080 kind of just change the atmosphere in the room a 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.360 little bit and just tweak it so that people think, oh, 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:58.800 this guy, maybe this guy doesn't know absolutely everything or 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.359 gives them, gives the audience like a little one upmanship 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.840 on you. I knew, I know that song, that he's 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:05.560 got that right. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.200 I know he's wrong. And that's literally the definition of 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.919 dramatic irony. So not in the Alanis Morris a sense 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.240 of it's a day where you don't want it to 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.000 rain and it rains. That's not truly ironic, as many 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:22.199 people are often correcting their friends. Dramatic irony in the 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.600 terms of you know, Aristotle and Greek drama is when 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.479 essentially the audience knows more than the characters do, and 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.880 in that moment, the character of Chili Gozalees knows less 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.160 than they do because he's he thinks it's a rolling 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.920 stone song. And I love creating that true dramatic irony 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.879 because it gets the antennas of the audience up and 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:42.880 they'll listen to the next song in a different way. 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.320 I've definitely gone too far and done things that are 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.479 only too provocative, and they'll remember the show, but they 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.080 might not remember the music. So I'm always trying to 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:53.240 sort of toe that line. 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.520 What have you done that's gone too far in your 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.240 What things have you done that you can remember? 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.359 Well, just some some some conferent heat things, perhaps where 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.080 I really sort of had an adversarial relationship with the 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:09.520 audience or maybe one particular audience member who won't play 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.800 along in some way, and I'll decide to sort of 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.840 make an issue of it, and we say, drive into 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.399 the skid when you're on the road and you're driving 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.399 on ice, and I'd like to drive into the skids. 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.120 So if there's a bit of a strange, awkward, ill 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.960 dodgy energy in the room, I tend to run towards 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.119 it rather than try to ignore it. And if you 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.600 run towards it, then you have the chance to sort 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.520 of take it on for the audience, so to speak, 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:38.480 and then maybe you can turn your show into something 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.040 very positive by the end. However, when you drive into 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:43.879 the skid, sometimes you never really get out of it, 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:45.679 and there have been shows where it just ends on 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:53.120 a dodgy, strange, ill unresolved mood where perhaps the audience 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:59.920 truly is confused and maybe truly dislikes me in some way. 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:00.960 People ever got in touch. 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.879 You know what, when I do those shows, musicians in 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:05.720 the audience tell me it's the best show they've seen 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.679 in me. Really, yeah, I'll just do one of those shows. 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.160 And then it's the musicians who will say, oh my god, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.160 I've seen you six times when you've come to Hamburg, 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.119 but what you did last night I was you know, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.760 but that's maybe the insider thing of musicians who love 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.679 to see sort of something that wouldn't normally happen at 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:27.199 a concert. A truly uncomfortable, unresolved moment of confrontation is 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.800 pretty rare in a music concert. Sure, yeah, and so 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:32.919 I guess that's why the musicians like it. And of course, 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.399 you know, Hamburg, I had a very intense confrontation with 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:38.600 a dude who just wouldn't get up on stage for 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.600 his music lesson. And usually I have all these ways, 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:43.359 you know, I can kind of get the audience to 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.199 sort of clap for them, and then the pressure of 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.520 the audience tends to get them up. Okay, that doesn't work. 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.040 I can go towards some other arguments or and at 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.040 some point I start to sort of really antagonize the person, 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.040 you know, in hopes that they'll finally I think they 0:20:58.080 --> 0:20:59.960 have to come on stage. Is the only way that 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.200 this tension gets resolved. And Hamburg, at this jazz festival, 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.160 like back in twenty thirteen, he just wouldn't come on stage. 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.800 He just wouldn't. And I didn't let it go, and 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.800 I stopped. You know, I was probably three quarters of 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:13.680 the way done through the concert. It must have gone 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.120 off for twelve fifteen minutes, and there were people really 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.439 standing up, and you know, there were Germans saying like, 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:23.119 you know, we like your music, not your statements. Lady 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.560 got up. And when I go to Hamburg now and 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.360 do promo or do concerts, really at least a few 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.280 people will mention. We'll mention and say, oh so no 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.439 big confrontation tonight, huh. And I'm like, look, that's not 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.600 my first choice. And my first choice is peace and 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.600 love with a few little ill moments, harmless ill moments 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.199 sprinkled in, you know. But like I said, if the 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.760 mood really goes there, then I'm going to go there too. 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:50.439 It's like a comedian, like there were certain comedians that 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.800 kind of have that same approach of especially because I 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:57.200 suppose especially because comedian culture in the UK at least 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.680 has got there is like a Heckel culture, and there 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.399 is part of that kind of back and forth with 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:07.080 the audience, who is your what comedians or comedy generally 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.919 like growing up who where does your kind of comedy? Loves? 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:11.240 Lie? 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:14.520 Well, I grew up watching you know, pretty mainstream television 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.080 as a kid, and I guess the only comedians I 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:21.679 really became aware of a little bit later as I 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:23.520 really as I started to be on stage, I got 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.639 more interested in. I became a big disciple of Andy Kaufman. Okay, 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.760 and you know, he borders on, of course, performance art. 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:33.159 He just happened to sort of choose the world of 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:36.520 comedy to be a performance artist, in much as today 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.880 you might say the same about people like Nathan Fielder 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.600 or Eric Andre to whom I dedicated one of the 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.000 pieces on solo Piano three. Actually the piece of Chico 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:46.159 is dedicated to him because I feel like he's a 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:50.960 little bit the Chico marks of today. And yeah, I 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.480 love it when you could just imagine, you know, and 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.159 Eric do you Eric Andre's work, so if you go 0:22:58.240 --> 0:22:59.720 online check out what he does. He has a show 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:05.080 on a adults swim It's a very energetic, unhinged, intense show. 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.960 For the first thirty seconds that I saw it, I thought, oh, 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.640 hell no, I'm not going to make it through two 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:14.240 minutes of this. It's way too aggressive. And then I 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.919 got lulled into this hypnotic state and it sort of 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:19.280 it weirdly. It relaxes me. 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:19.920 Really. 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.440 But if you imagine those shows, which are I think 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.399 are ten to eleven minutes each episode, if you imagine 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:30.400 those hanging on a screen in the Guggenheim, you could 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:33.680 easily think of it as a document of very cutting 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:38.240 edge performance art. I like that blurry line between conceptual 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:42.080 performance art and comedy, and I like to bring that 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:44.399 into the concert hall where I am and play with 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:46.399 the conventions of a concert hall. I don't like playing 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.280 in art galleries because everyone will say, oh, I know 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.560 what he's doing. But if you do it in a 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:55.719 phil harmony in Germany, or if you do it at 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:58.720 Cadogan Hall where people are used to understanding, oh, I 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:02.280 come here for feel good Christmas, classical concerts and things 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:04.120 like that, all of a sudden, you have a chance 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:06.840 to really really mess with people's heads because you're in 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:10.439 the real world. And I don't like art when it 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:12.600 hangs in a gallery. I like art as it exists 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:15.639 in the real world. Yesterday I was in I think 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:19.440 it's Hyde Park and I saw that giant thing from Christo. 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:22.399 There's this like looks like a candy pyramid or something 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:24.840 in the middle of in the middle of the water there, 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:27.160 and you can take a boat and get really really 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:29.240 close to it, and I loved it. I like to 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:31.240 see art. I like to just turn a corner and 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:35.199 be like Aliens, Hello, you know. I love that feeling 0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:38.280 much more so than like going to the Tate and 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:40.840 seeing that exact same pyramid in a giant room. I 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:43.119 just wouldn't do it for me because the frame of 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:46.719 a gallery, it's too obvious. We expect crazy things, we 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:49.600 expect to sort of maybe be shocked or provoked, and 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:52.560 we can always rationalize it while we're in an art gallery. 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:55.640 But if that's happening in a concert hall, where you're 0:24:55.720 --> 0:24:58.320 used to seeing musicians be so respectful, and then there's 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:03.000 a musician being so disrespectfu for sweating, spinning, sitting there, 0:25:03.280 --> 0:25:08.600 you know, swearing slippers, bathrobe, the whole thing. Yeah, that 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:11.959 has a chance of being mildly transgressive in twenty eighteen. 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:14.199 To do the same thing if I was playing in 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:15.840 the Tate Modern, it's just not going to be a 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:17.560 subversive or transgressive in the least. 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:20.480 Do you know Stuart Lee at all? The British comedian. 0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:22.879 No, but just the other day I was asking someone 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:26.080 for their British comedy recommendations and he was on that list. 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:27.520 So yeah, I'm going to check him out very sea. 0:25:27.720 --> 0:25:31.200 He's like, I think you're you'd be into him. He's 0:25:31.240 --> 0:25:34.920 got a kind of I suppose he is like the 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:40.199 he's kind of like the liberal elites comedian guy. Really, 0:25:40.240 --> 0:25:43.040 he's like anti T he doesn't do much TV. He's 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:45.439 not like he's quite He's a snob. He's a total 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:48.520 comedy snob. But he's got this, I suppose the way 0:25:48.560 --> 0:25:51.520 to describe him in a nutshell, although this isn't what 0:25:51.600 --> 0:25:53.280 he's all about. He kind of has a thing where 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:57.600 he repeats a joke and now quite abstract, that quite 0:25:57.640 --> 0:26:00.679 weird and abstract, but he will repeat it for like 0:26:01.119 --> 0:26:04.480 fifteen minutes, so it goes there's a point where he's 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:07.840 repeating the same thing and it's so it's funny. Then 0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:11.480 you have to basically sit out a period where you're 0:26:11.480 --> 0:26:13.480 sick of it and it's not funny anymore until it 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:14.400 comes round to being funny. 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:15.639 So it's like Philip Glass humor. 0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:16.920 Yeah, it kind of inentually. 0:26:16.640 --> 0:26:19.280 Because Philip Glass literally you know, when I talk about 0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:23.479 minimalist music, often the music is not as repetitive as 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:28.240 it seems. Like Steve Raich, the music evolves quite a bit. Yeah, 0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:31.840 Terry Riley, it evolves. Philip Glass is a different bird. 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:36.080 He actually repeats things and the change happens in the 0:26:36.119 --> 0:26:38.960 mind of the listener. So that's I guess. 0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:41.440 Yeah, yeah, that's a really good comparison. I think you'd 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:45.000 be intim did you watch the talking about Andy Kaufman? 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:48.399 Did you see the Jim Carey Not not the film 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:50.720 of Man in the Moon, but there's a documentary about 0:26:50.720 --> 0:26:51.600 the making of it. 0:26:51.640 --> 0:26:55.199 I was not very convinced. I did not feel that 0:26:55.359 --> 0:27:00.439 Jim Carey really internalized what Andy Kauffman was really about, 0:27:00.600 --> 0:27:03.160 and he focused on some of the more superficial aspects 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:07.639 of just the outward shocking nature of Andy Coffin was 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:12.040 a very positive performance artist. To me, he created very 0:27:12.080 --> 0:27:17.480 positive energy through letting out his monster once in a while. 0:27:17.520 --> 0:27:21.200 But essentially, as I see myself as well, you're there 0:27:21.200 --> 0:27:24.800 to create positive energy. Otherwise it doesn't really work. I mean, 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:29.080 you know, not counting the occasional confrontation with his stoic 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:32.480 german who refuses to get on stage. Fundamentally, I believe 0:27:32.520 --> 0:27:34.440 I'm there to create positive energy. It's what I strive 0:27:34.520 --> 0:27:36.879 to do. And I really think Andy Kaufman did that. Also. 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:40.320 I felt like from that Jim kit from the documentary, 0:27:41.040 --> 0:27:43.440 it did feel like Jim Kye was just using it 0:27:43.480 --> 0:27:45.360 as a really good excuse to really piss every one. 0:27:45.359 --> 0:27:47.720 All exactly right. That's what I felt as well. He 0:27:47.800 --> 0:27:51.359 was sort of being a bit opportunistic what he thought 0:27:51.960 --> 0:27:54.080 the Andy Kaufman frame would let him do. 0:27:54.600 --> 0:27:57.760 In previous interviews of yours that I've read and seen 0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:01.800 online and things. Is the debate between an entertainer and 0:28:01.800 --> 0:28:04.920 an artist. And you consider yourself an entertainer. 0:28:04.880 --> 0:28:08.160 Yes, but I think entertainer includes artists. That's your thing. 0:28:08.200 --> 0:28:11.199 I think if you're an entertainer, you know they say that, 0:28:11.280 --> 0:28:14.600 like what do they say? A conservative is a liberal 0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:17.560 who got mugged or something. You know, so you're a 0:28:17.600 --> 0:28:20.760 liberal until you know someone robs you, and then all 0:28:20.760 --> 0:28:23.320 of a sudden you're like, get these criminals all in jail, 0:28:23.440 --> 0:28:26.800 you know, because it's finally touched you personally. In another way, 0:28:26.880 --> 0:28:30.639 I believe an entertainer is an artist who understood that 0:28:30.680 --> 0:28:33.639 they don't exist without the audience. And the minute you 0:28:33.680 --> 0:28:36.720 sort of switch that in your mind and think, oh, 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:40.000 everything I do on my own is just preparation and 0:28:40.080 --> 0:28:42.680 the actual thing I do only happens when there's an 0:28:42.680 --> 0:28:46.520 audience there, then I think you just instantly become an entertainer. 0:28:46.600 --> 0:28:50.680 Not in the sense of Pandora to people, lowest common denominator, 0:28:50.720 --> 0:28:52.560 this will work. I'll just say the name of the 0:28:52.560 --> 0:28:54.240 town I'm in and they're all going to cheer. That's 0:28:54.240 --> 0:28:57.640 not what I mean by entertainment. Entertainment for me is 0:28:57.760 --> 0:29:02.920 essentially the strange seeming contradiction between being larger than life 0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:05.600 but very very intimate with the audience. And the way 0:29:05.640 --> 0:29:09.680 you do that, I think is by showing people your fantasies. 0:29:10.080 --> 0:29:13.000 That's what I observed David Bowie do. No one said 0:29:13.040 --> 0:29:15.080 David Bowie is inauthentic, Although if you really look at 0:29:15.080 --> 0:29:19.200 how he was dressed as Ziggy Stardust. You're kind of like, Okay, 0:29:19.360 --> 0:29:21.840 how come we feel so connected to him despite that, Well, 0:29:21.880 --> 0:29:25.240 it's because he has this fantasy that he's sort of 0:29:25.280 --> 0:29:27.600 not of this earth. He feels like he doesn't belong. 0:29:27.640 --> 0:29:30.480 It's actually extremely poetic to sort of take on the 0:29:30.560 --> 0:29:34.719 role of an alien who's observing these humans and feeling 0:29:34.760 --> 0:29:38.640 not at home. And that, to me was really touching, 0:29:39.080 --> 0:29:42.400 despite the fact that it seemed almost ridiculous, you know, superficially, 0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:46.959 and I feel that to incarnate the musical genius, it's 0:29:47.040 --> 0:29:49.800 a fantasy. I don't think I'm a musical genius. I 0:29:49.840 --> 0:29:54.640 would love to be one. In my fantasies, I have 0:29:54.720 --> 0:29:59.640 this impunity. And the impunity comes because will everyone will 0:29:59.640 --> 0:30:02.720 allow musical genius to do whatever he or she wants. 0:30:03.160 --> 0:30:05.320 So that's the fantasy I live out. And the strange 0:30:05.360 --> 0:30:08.400 thing is when you get on stage, people tend to 0:30:08.520 --> 0:30:10.840 play along in a way, and therefore it kind of 0:30:10.880 --> 0:30:13.960 reinforces it. So there are moments where you can start 0:30:13.960 --> 0:30:16.120 to believe your own fantasy. And that's of course where 0:30:16.120 --> 0:30:19.920 it can get I guess complicated for people like David Bowie. 0:30:19.920 --> 0:30:22.040 But for me. I guess the rappers were the ones who, 0:30:22.480 --> 0:30:25.600 in a more concrete way in the late nineties, served 0:30:25.600 --> 0:30:27.960 as my main inspiration. I think that's why I decided 0:30:27.960 --> 0:30:31.680 to apply the rapper's playbook to being a piano player, essentially, 0:30:31.720 --> 0:30:36.680 which to say, show your monster. Don't believe that you 0:30:36.760 --> 0:30:39.480 have to only show the sides of you that will 0:30:39.520 --> 0:30:45.880 make you well liked or you know, don't think that 0:30:46.120 --> 0:30:55.160 by simultaneously sharing, you know, fairly conscious and positive thoughts 0:30:55.200 --> 0:30:59.479 along with very negative exhibits of self loathing, that only 0:30:59.520 --> 0:31:05.600 creates more intimacy with the audience. And so to see 0:31:05.720 --> 0:31:09.320 a musician live out their fantasy is more intimate than 0:31:10.120 --> 0:31:12.800 just seeing them walk up on stage dressed as they 0:31:12.840 --> 0:31:16.880 would be in the daytime when they're not performing. There's 0:31:17.040 --> 0:31:20.680 just nothing intimate about that, even though they might think 0:31:20.720 --> 0:31:23.360 they're being authentic. I'm not interested in authenticity. Let's say 0:31:23.360 --> 0:31:27.080 I'm interested in intimacy. And what is more intimate than 0:31:27.120 --> 0:31:29.800 knowing someone's fantasies. I mean, sometimes you're in a relationship 0:31:29.800 --> 0:31:32.240 for five years with someone before you find out what 0:31:32.320 --> 0:31:36.800 their particular fantasies are. It's really that's personal stuff. So 0:31:37.040 --> 0:31:42.120 to go up there and show this bitter and deluded 0:31:42.680 --> 0:31:48.560 and you know, self aggrandizing, whatever, all those adjectives you 0:31:48.560 --> 0:31:51.800 can apply to the persona. It's because I dream of 0:31:51.800 --> 0:31:54.320 being able to be that way, and being on stage 0:31:54.360 --> 0:31:56.920 allows me to be that way. People clap for it, 0:31:57.360 --> 0:31:59.200 and it's a very reinforcing process. 0:32:00.280 --> 0:32:02.880 Like in terms of where where you're at now, as 0:32:03.040 --> 0:32:06.400 Chitty Gonzales, compared to when you're your first band's son, 0:32:06.760 --> 0:32:09.880 that the experience of being in that band and you 0:32:09.960 --> 0:32:13.120 released three albums and had a record deal and it 0:32:13.240 --> 0:32:15.880 was a thing. It wasn't like a high school band 0:32:15.920 --> 0:32:18.120 that didn't do anything. It was like the first stage 0:32:18.120 --> 0:32:22.160 of your career. I guess how much of that experience 0:32:22.840 --> 0:32:25.720 do you think has shaped you now? 0:32:25.760 --> 0:32:28.680 And all of the that's like the origin story. That's 0:32:28.720 --> 0:32:31.720 like when lightning hit the laboratory. And you know, I 0:32:31.880 --> 0:32:37.440 was so traumatized by how that project was perceived because 0:32:37.840 --> 0:32:41.280 I sort of naively thought back then, the music is enough, 0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:44.760 Surely everything else will fall together, like I've gotten signed 0:32:45.080 --> 0:32:49.880 end of Journey. And of course I then you know, realized, oh, 0:32:49.920 --> 0:32:51.880 maybe it wasn't a good idea to just let them 0:32:52.000 --> 0:32:54.520 choose the photographer. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to 0:32:54.600 --> 0:32:56.720 let them choose the stylist and I'll just wear whatever 0:32:56.760 --> 0:32:58.760 clothes because no matter what, the music is going to 0:32:58.800 --> 0:33:01.600 do the work for me. So I naively thought I 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:06.520 was maybe above the work of storytelling around my music, 0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:09.520 and thought music is strong enough, it'll tell its own 0:33:09.560 --> 0:33:12.400 story and all that other stuff doesn't really matter. I 0:33:12.480 --> 0:33:15.600 quickly learned I should take control of the storytelling as well, 0:33:15.640 --> 0:33:19.120 because I won't like the story that sort of emerges, 0:33:19.360 --> 0:33:21.680 you know, and there has to be a story. To 0:33:21.760 --> 0:33:24.280 think that music is enough in its own in a 0:33:24.360 --> 0:33:28.120 vacuum in a business sense, in terms of like trying to, 0:33:28.200 --> 0:33:31.080 you know, find your audience is naive if you want 0:33:31.120 --> 0:33:34.080 to be a pure artist. And I know some people 0:33:34.160 --> 0:33:37.160 like this and they just make music literally for themselves, 0:33:37.680 --> 0:33:41.480 that's a whole different ballgame. But I am an entertainer. 0:33:41.640 --> 0:33:43.960 I don't exist without an audience. There are artists who 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:46.040 can't exist with an audience. I'm not one of them. 0:33:46.120 --> 0:33:51.320 So therefore I'm responsible for the storytelling. And not only that, 0:33:51.400 --> 0:33:54.680 I've started to really enjoy the storytelling, so once I 0:33:54.720 --> 0:33:57.720 made it the goal of mine too. Okay, learn how 0:33:57.720 --> 0:34:00.600 to tell the story. See if this can become part 0:34:00.640 --> 0:34:02.560 of the artwork. See if this can be just as 0:34:02.600 --> 0:34:05.880 exciting as thinking of music walking down the street, think 0:34:05.880 --> 0:34:07.480 of what your next photo will be, Think of the 0:34:07.520 --> 0:34:09.839 next thing you're going to say in an interview, think 0:34:09.880 --> 0:34:12.960 of the next theme you'd like to explore. Has become 0:34:13.200 --> 0:34:15.680 just as much of a sort of reflexive way of 0:34:15.719 --> 0:34:18.880 being creative as thinking of chord progressions or melodies. 0:34:19.000 --> 0:34:21.920 Your genre is in one way because even though a 0:34:21.920 --> 0:34:25.400 lot of people might consider you a contemporary classical pianist, 0:34:25.480 --> 0:34:28.160 for example, there's kind of loads of different strings to 0:34:28.200 --> 0:34:30.960 your bow. Did you find that being in like an 0:34:31.040 --> 0:34:35.840 old rock band in your twenties was just too limiting? 0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:40.399 Well, when I first started recording as Chili Gonzalez, there 0:34:40.480 --> 0:34:43.200 wasn't that the piano was pretty well hidden inside the 0:34:43.280 --> 0:34:46.319 music and on stage there wasn't physically a piano there 0:34:47.320 --> 0:34:49.880 because I was sort of, you know, trying to tour 0:34:50.440 --> 0:34:52.640 a on a shoe string budget at the very beginning, 0:34:53.000 --> 0:34:55.920 And essentially I was just fascinated by rap performance, and 0:34:55.920 --> 0:34:59.239 so I thought, well, as a as a it's acceptable 0:35:00.080 --> 0:35:02.360 in the rap world to just basically have playback and 0:35:02.440 --> 0:35:05.839 to consider yourself the instrument. So that was good enough 0:35:05.880 --> 0:35:08.239 for me for those first few years, but that was 0:35:08.239 --> 0:35:11.799 a way of getting attention and testing out this combination 0:35:11.920 --> 0:35:16.760 of storytelling and persona and music. Once I sort of realized, okay, 0:35:16.760 --> 0:35:20.319 I'm onto something, there's a way that I can be myself, 0:35:21.800 --> 0:35:24.800 although quite exaggerated, and yet make a connection with people 0:35:24.800 --> 0:35:27.000 that was extremely encouraging. That was sort of the first 0:35:27.040 --> 0:35:30.759 test of the rappers ethos. Then there was a moment 0:35:30.800 --> 0:35:32.920 where I thought, Okay, I've gotten people's attention. This is 0:35:32.960 --> 0:35:35.520 around two thousand and three and I'd put on three 0:35:35.560 --> 0:35:37.120 albums and you know, back in the day that was 0:35:37.160 --> 0:35:40.040 still pre Internet, but you know, I'd been on the 0:35:40.040 --> 0:35:42.040 cover of Jockey Slut. Anyone remember Jockeys? 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:42.520 I remember? 0:35:43.920 --> 0:35:45.720 And the face? 0:35:45.840 --> 0:35:47.440 Remember the face? 0:35:47.520 --> 0:35:51.040 How about Slee's Nation? I mean deep cuts? Wow? 0:35:51.160 --> 0:35:52.279 These are like these are? 0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:56.440 That was my stomping piano. That was my stomping grounds, 0:35:56.440 --> 0:35:59.680 really and I think ID Magazine might be the only 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:04.040 survikay anyway. And that was a moment where I thought, Okay, 0:36:04.040 --> 0:36:06.520 I've gotten people's attention. I've proven that to myself, but 0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:10.320 I need to get back to another part of myself 0:36:10.360 --> 0:36:13.280 that I haven't really shown to people. That is important, 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:16.920 and that's the side of me that is respectful of music, 0:36:17.000 --> 0:36:21.239 the side of me that was taught by my maternal grandfather, who, 0:36:21.280 --> 0:36:23.400 at three years old plunged me in front of the piano, 0:36:23.560 --> 0:36:25.520 and all of a sudden, I had access to this 0:36:26.840 --> 0:36:30.640 machine and this mood where time would just pass for 0:36:30.719 --> 0:36:33.439 hours and hours and hours, where I felt safe, could 0:36:33.440 --> 0:36:36.880 express things that were unexpressible in polite society. And it 0:36:37.880 --> 0:36:41.600 just became an escape and really positive escape, and also 0:36:41.680 --> 0:36:43.600 earned me my place in society. I mean, it was 0:36:43.600 --> 0:36:47.040 so seductive and so addictive, and yet I hadn't really 0:36:47.080 --> 0:36:49.879 shown that side yet, because I'd been busy just trying 0:36:49.880 --> 0:36:51.920 to make a racket to get people to pay attention 0:36:52.000 --> 0:36:55.520 to me. So luckily, that first piano album, Solo Piano 0:36:55.560 --> 0:36:57.879 in two thousand and four was a way to sort 0:36:57.880 --> 0:36:59.800 of see, okay, let me go to this other extreme, 0:37:00.560 --> 0:37:02.640 see how many people can follow me. Let's see if 0:37:02.640 --> 0:37:06.839 this is of interest to the small curious audience that 0:37:06.880 --> 0:37:10.600 I've sort of built up now. And it ended up 0:37:10.640 --> 0:37:12.879 opening up all kinds of avenues for me. I wasn't 0:37:12.920 --> 0:37:15.080 even sure if it would just be a little side 0:37:15.160 --> 0:37:18.160 project and a sort of you know, a little curio 0:37:18.360 --> 0:37:21.640 for certain people. Oh, this crazy guy actually knows how 0:37:21.680 --> 0:37:23.840 to play the piano. But that became sort of a 0:37:23.840 --> 0:37:27.880 whole thing all of a sudden. I was, you know, 0:37:29.719 --> 0:37:34.160 blown away by the level of attachment that people had 0:37:34.200 --> 0:37:36.520 through the music. I hadn't seen that over those first 0:37:36.520 --> 0:37:39.520 few years where I was just barking to get people 0:37:39.560 --> 0:37:42.279 to pay attention. All of a sudden people were saying, yeah, 0:37:42.320 --> 0:37:44.880 I have this deep relationship with your album. This album 0:37:45.880 --> 0:37:49.440 helped me. Even things like that, and you think, oh, okay, 0:37:49.560 --> 0:37:51.480 this is a deeper reaction. I want more of this. 0:37:51.600 --> 0:37:53.840 Let me start chasing this a little bit more, and 0:37:53.920 --> 0:37:57.400 let me see how I can eventually try to integrate 0:37:58.280 --> 0:38:04.160 the carnival barker and the respectful child musician essentially. And 0:38:04.200 --> 0:38:06.720 I think that's started to click, probably around two thousand 0:38:06.719 --> 0:38:10.480 and nine, twenty ten, post Guinness World Record, starting my 0:38:10.520 --> 0:38:14.120 own label, doing the Ivory Tower album, slowly leading to 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:16.880 solo Piano two and up until now the sort of 0:38:16.920 --> 0:38:20.200 modern era of what I do. I feel like I've 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:24.239 managed to sort of reconcile those two be those two 0:38:24.320 --> 0:38:29.520 people simultaneously in my work, And of course, certain albums 0:38:29.560 --> 0:38:32.600 will always have a certain focus on one side or 0:38:32.600 --> 0:38:35.719 the other. I'd say the Solo Piano series tends to 0:38:35.920 --> 0:38:37.960 you know, it's a bit more idealistic in a way. 0:38:38.000 --> 0:38:40.680 In a way, maybe you can hear the musician who 0:38:40.719 --> 0:38:43.200 would wish that music would be enough when I do 0:38:43.239 --> 0:38:47.320 a solo piano record, and when I do a rap album, 0:38:47.360 --> 0:38:50.120 you hear much more the musician who wants to break 0:38:50.160 --> 0:38:53.880 free of that and just only wants impunity. But I 0:38:53.920 --> 0:38:57.239 feel like every time I do a concert, you see 0:38:57.280 --> 0:39:00.839 those two things not only easily co exist, but need 0:39:00.920 --> 0:39:01.640 to coexist. 0:39:02.560 --> 0:39:05.200 And now that you're at the end of the Solo 0:39:05.200 --> 0:39:08.759 Piano trilogy, how does that feel? Do you see this 0:39:08.840 --> 0:39:11.080 as the final of the who. 0:39:10.880 --> 0:39:13.520 Wants to buy album called Solo Piano four? That just 0:39:13.560 --> 0:39:14.200 sounds weird. 0:39:14.920 --> 0:39:15.560 Yeah, that's true. 0:39:16.040 --> 0:39:18.120 The rule of threes really seems to apply. And I 0:39:18.560 --> 0:39:22.440 feel like the idea of making piano music that can 0:39:22.480 --> 0:39:26.160 be listened to passively and actively, which is sort of 0:39:26.440 --> 0:39:29.359 the point of the solo Piano records, is it works 0:39:29.400 --> 0:39:32.799 as background music. I love background music. I believe people 0:39:32.840 --> 0:39:36.640 deserve good background music absolutely, or people who want to 0:39:36.640 --> 0:39:41.080 listen to it in a closer, more intimate way. That's 0:39:41.160 --> 0:39:43.840 the sort of test for me for these pieces, you know, 0:39:43.920 --> 0:39:47.200 do they work in those both of those listening modes, 0:39:48.000 --> 0:39:50.040 And if it passes that test, then it can sort 0:39:50.040 --> 0:39:52.759 of make it onto the album. And I may have 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:54.799 stretched that as far as it can go with the 0:39:54.840 --> 0:39:59.240 solo Piano three, where I started to find myself wanting 0:39:59.280 --> 0:40:02.200 to get close sort of how I play live. At 0:40:02.239 --> 0:40:03.840 the same time, I didn't want to make it so 0:40:03.840 --> 0:40:05.560 that it feels like a live album, which is the 0:40:05.640 --> 0:40:08.080 kind of album that frankly, if it's on the background 0:40:08.120 --> 0:40:09.879 and dinner and it starts to start to hit too 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:12.680 hard and get too dense, someone's gonna get up and 0:40:12.960 --> 0:40:15.680 like turn down the volume. Yeah, that that means that 0:40:15.760 --> 0:40:17.680 it doesn't work as a solo piano record. To me, 0:40:18.320 --> 0:40:20.879 I'm not sure in the future if I'm always going 0:40:20.920 --> 0:40:24.439 to want to make music that has that duel sort 0:40:24.480 --> 0:40:28.640 of listening capacity passive and active, remains to be seen. 0:40:28.680 --> 0:40:32.520 But I do believe I'll make music alone at the piano. 0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:34.880 It's great because as I started to do interviews in 0:40:34.920 --> 0:40:38.560 France to say alone at the piano is solo piano, 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:42.400 and so I had this perfect little like advertising jingle 0:40:42.480 --> 0:40:45.720 style thing. I'm like, I'm still gonna make music solo piano, 0:40:46.080 --> 0:40:49.000 but it won't be solo piano. I had, like you know, 0:40:49.640 --> 0:40:51.600 it's like a perfect little but you always find truth 0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:54.560 in those little those little turns of phrase anyhow, And 0:40:54.600 --> 0:40:58.239 it's true. I don't know that I really have something 0:40:58.280 --> 0:41:00.400 I can add to these three albums in terms of 0:41:00.400 --> 0:41:01.920 what the what the concept really was. 0:41:02.120 --> 0:41:04.880 Yeah, it's kind of reached its natural end point. 0:41:04.880 --> 0:41:07.920 It's delument to use another French word. However, Jay Z 0:41:08.040 --> 0:41:11.200 retired multiple times and like just put another album last week, 0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:12.439 So never say never. 0:41:12.680 --> 0:41:14.760 No, that's true, you can always come out of retirement. 0:41:14.760 --> 0:41:18.360 Maybe prequels. I suppose that would be solo Harpsichord, the 0:41:18.400 --> 0:41:19.600 prequel to solo Piano. 0:41:19.800 --> 0:41:23.680 This year, you've also launched your first school program. 0:41:23.800 --> 0:41:24.920 That's right, The Conservatory. 0:41:24.960 --> 0:41:26.279 The Conservatory, great name. 0:41:26.360 --> 0:41:30.600 Obviously, I thought about it for years and it was 0:41:30.719 --> 0:41:32.560 only when the name came to me that it became 0:41:32.560 --> 0:41:35.360 a realcit Sometimes it's the name. Now I have to 0:41:35.400 --> 0:41:35.640 do it. 0:41:35.680 --> 0:41:36.840 No, I've got to do it because the name is 0:41:36.880 --> 0:41:39.720 just too good to pass this up. Has it happened already? 0:41:39.719 --> 0:41:41.640 This year? It was an eight day It's an eight 0:41:41.719 --> 0:41:43.240 day eight day. 0:41:43.680 --> 0:41:46.040 Yes, an eight day very intensive program really based on 0:41:46.120 --> 0:41:51.080 performance rather than studio or songwriting. It's about how to 0:41:51.120 --> 0:41:55.799 create this connection on stage by letting go well at 0:41:55.840 --> 0:41:58.680 the same time preparing in a very disciplined way for 0:41:58.760 --> 0:42:03.359 that moment. So that's sort of strange, counterintuitive, you know, 0:42:03.560 --> 0:42:07.960 dance between being essentially a respectful musician and a disrespectful 0:42:08.000 --> 0:42:11.440 one and trying to pass that on to certain musicians 0:42:11.480 --> 0:42:13.600 who've mastered maybe one side of it but not the other. 0:42:13.719 --> 0:42:16.360 So I had a really wide variety, again going for 0:42:16.440 --> 0:42:19.840 this musically humanist approach. So I had like a classical 0:42:19.840 --> 0:42:24.600 guitarist who was an African French woman. I had a 0:42:24.719 --> 0:42:28.480 rapper from Houston, singer songwriter from Argentina, a kind of 0:42:28.520 --> 0:42:34.560 freaky art performance artist, musician from Chile, a kind of 0:42:35.200 --> 0:42:40.600 slightly shy, introverted jazz saxophone player from the Ukraine. I mean, 0:42:40.640 --> 0:42:43.000 I really had all these different sort of types, and 0:42:43.080 --> 0:42:46.200 of course representing musicians that I'd known over the years 0:42:46.239 --> 0:42:48.799 as well. You know Peaches, who was one of the 0:42:48.800 --> 0:42:52.040 guest teachers along with like Jarvis Cocker and a bunch 0:42:52.120 --> 0:42:55.200 of other people. Peach just said, it's funny you chose 0:42:55.280 --> 0:42:57.600 the students almost as if you were looking for stand 0:42:57.640 --> 0:42:59.959 ins for all the musicians who who sort of taught 0:43:00.239 --> 0:43:02.960 something along the way, And yeah, in a way, I 0:43:03.000 --> 0:43:06.880 recreated this strange journey of me essentially a shy person 0:43:06.880 --> 0:43:10.920 who became good in performing. And so I sort of 0:43:10.960 --> 0:43:13.600 started to think, well, what if I can recreate those 0:43:13.640 --> 0:43:16.000 conditions that sort of happened to me by accident over 0:43:16.040 --> 0:43:18.720 fifteen years, if I can compress that into eight days, 0:43:19.239 --> 0:43:23.800 turn them into you know, a real sort of group 0:43:23.840 --> 0:43:26.480 of friends. Because when I had a group of friends 0:43:26.480 --> 0:43:28.880 to make music with, we never felt like we were working. 0:43:28.920 --> 0:43:30.440 So that was the first thing I was looking for, 0:43:30.840 --> 0:43:33.240 what's a group of seven who I think will become friends? 0:43:33.800 --> 0:43:36.200 Not just who were the best seven people? It was like, 0:43:36.239 --> 0:43:38.719 what's the best group of seven? That's sort of what 0:43:39.320 --> 0:43:42.520 was in my mind when I watched over eight hundred 0:43:42.600 --> 0:43:46.520 videos to choose these seven musicians. And once I had 0:43:46.520 --> 0:43:48.400 that group and it felt like, Okay, I have a 0:43:48.400 --> 0:43:51.759 strong suspicion they'll they'll get along as friends. Then in 0:43:51.800 --> 0:43:55.200 a way, it was just about, yeah, teaching the lessons 0:43:55.239 --> 0:43:56.919 along the way that I learned. 0:43:57.120 --> 0:43:58.759 Did they get on? Did they become friends? 0:43:58.760 --> 0:44:00.719 One hundred percent? Successful? Yeah? Yeah, I mean maybe it 0:44:00.760 --> 0:44:02.000 was a fluke. You know, I'm going to do it 0:44:02.040 --> 0:44:05.120 again every year, and we'll see next year if there's 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:08.759 a sort of proof of concept that if my instincts 0:44:08.800 --> 0:44:12.279 were really so good that you know, they did get 0:44:12.320 --> 0:44:14.400 along and feel like a family after just three or 0:44:14.400 --> 0:44:18.440 four days a very intensive you know, living, working, playing, 0:44:18.480 --> 0:44:22.920 eating everything together, And we'll see if I can sort 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:26.480 of recreate that, because if there had been some really 0:44:26.920 --> 0:44:30.640 bad sort of social feng shui in the group, I'm 0:44:30.680 --> 0:44:32.360 not sure I could have gotten as far as we 0:44:32.440 --> 0:44:34.560 did in those eight days. You know, they play a 0:44:34.560 --> 0:44:36.560 concert at the end of the eight days for a 0:44:36.600 --> 0:44:39.560 thousand people live streamed, and the material of the concert 0:44:39.640 --> 0:44:42.200 is all stuff they wrote while at the conservatory. 0:44:42.719 --> 0:44:44.760 They leave it all behind in eight days. 0:44:45.040 --> 0:44:48.080 Yeah, and only eight days, yeah, because I have these 0:44:48.120 --> 0:44:50.840 techniques to get people to write music very very very quickly, 0:44:51.040 --> 0:44:53.640 and in groups of two and three, at some point 0:44:53.680 --> 0:44:56.440 they just build trust in every possible constellation of the 0:44:56.520 --> 0:44:59.080 seven of them, and that's what bonds them together. They've 0:44:59.080 --> 0:45:02.719 each had a little sperience with each one one on one, 0:45:02.880 --> 0:45:05.520 and they're playing sometimes together as a group of seven. 0:45:05.880 --> 0:45:08.840 And everything they played at that final concert was something 0:45:08.880 --> 0:45:12.960 that they that they wrote under either time pressure or 0:45:13.080 --> 0:45:18.520 just a sort of improvising music game called songing, which 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:20.360 is how I write music with my friends. Sometimes I 0:45:20.360 --> 0:45:22.800 mean Limit to Your Love, which I wrote with Feist 0:45:22.800 --> 0:45:25.160 and was covered by James Blake, was written using this 0:45:25.239 --> 0:45:27.839 technique of songing. Songing is essentially you have a list 0:45:27.880 --> 0:45:30.200 of titles. You just go, okay, let me write a 0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:32.040 list of titles that I could imagine could be songs. 0:45:32.040 --> 0:45:34.400 You just go very quickly. You know, the walls are 0:45:34.440 --> 0:45:40.279 closing in my favorite hat, screw you. Whatever comes to 0:45:40.320 --> 0:45:42.799 your mind becomes a song title, and then you have 0:45:42.880 --> 0:45:44.560 this piece of paper in front of you and you 0:45:44.640 --> 0:45:48.239 just create this space where you say, Okay, we're gonna go. Now, 0:45:48.239 --> 0:45:50.040 I'm gonna put my fingers on the keys, you're gonna 0:45:50.040 --> 0:45:52.840 start to sing. And one of those little titles that 0:45:52.840 --> 0:45:54.759 Fist had come up with was called limit to Your Love. 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:57.200 She didn't know in what way it was supposed to 0:45:57.239 --> 0:46:02.560 be expounded upon. We just went for it. There's a 0:46:02.680 --> 0:46:07.520 limit to your Love. It was written in the amount 0:46:07.560 --> 0:46:09.440 of time it takes to. 0:46:09.440 --> 0:46:12.279 Perform to hear it. There's so many great songs that 0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:14.040 that's the case isn't it the best? 0:46:14.080 --> 0:46:16.640 We hear that exactly. How stupid do you have to 0:46:16.680 --> 0:46:19.760 be if you've had ten of those experiences? How stupid 0:46:19.760 --> 0:46:21.600 do you have to be to like labor over a 0:46:21.640 --> 0:46:24.600 song and think they should take you weeks when secretly 0:46:24.680 --> 0:46:27.319 you know that the best stuff you've done was when 0:46:27.360 --> 0:46:30.120 you didn't have time to filter it through your idea 0:46:30.120 --> 0:46:32.799 of like, is this good? Is this me? Is this 0:46:32.840 --> 0:46:35.000 what people expect to me? Will people like this? Why 0:46:35.000 --> 0:46:38.160 do I even do music? What is life? We're all 0:46:38.200 --> 0:46:41.360 gonna die? You know. There's it's so existential. Whereas you 0:46:41.360 --> 0:46:43.680 know if someone says pointing it, he was saying, hey, man, 0:46:43.760 --> 0:46:45.680 do a song called screw you. You're just gonna come 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:48.040 up with it. And if you do. At one point 0:46:48.040 --> 0:46:50.960 we did I think forty of them, right, I think, no, 0:46:51.040 --> 0:46:52.960 thirty five. It was like I asked the seven of 0:46:52.960 --> 0:46:54.960 them to each come up with five titles, and in 0:46:55.000 --> 0:46:57.839 two hours, just by pointing at them and telling them 0:46:57.880 --> 0:47:00.440 the title, we came up with thirty five. And I 0:47:00.520 --> 0:47:02.160 was like, Kay, let's break for lunch. You know, and 0:47:02.200 --> 0:47:04.880 at some point they can't even remember all the songs 0:47:04.880 --> 0:47:06.719 they wrote when they're when they're working in this way, 0:47:06.760 --> 0:47:09.200 and then I had a computer where we recorded everything, 0:47:09.200 --> 0:47:10.400 and at the end of the day they can go 0:47:10.480 --> 0:47:13.439 listen and they can sort of go, oh, that's there's 0:47:13.440 --> 0:47:15.400 some truth in that in that song. It's only a 0:47:15.440 --> 0:47:19.160 minute long and it's not perfect, but the spark of 0:47:19.160 --> 0:47:21.800 it is something they can really trust as a product 0:47:21.840 --> 0:47:24.080 of their true instinct. And then, of course you can 0:47:24.120 --> 0:47:26.640 take months to finish things. I mean, solo Piano three, 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:30.960 I spent two years really finishing the songs. But every 0:47:31.040 --> 0:47:33.880 song in and of itself was born of a of 0:47:33.960 --> 0:47:36.160 a sort of random sound check moment where I just 0:47:36.160 --> 0:47:44.360 suddenly was like and I was like, that's something amazing, okay, 0:47:44.360 --> 0:47:45.520 and then I take a year and a half to 0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:48.480 actually finish it. But the spark of it, it has 0:47:48.520 --> 0:47:50.959 to be in a moment where you have zero self consciousness. 0:47:51.400 --> 0:47:53.839 That's how you're gonna find something that really communicates something 0:47:53.840 --> 0:47:54.280 to people. 0:48:02.280 --> 0:48:05.920 Midnight Chats is a loud and quiet podcast music courtesy 0:48:05.960 --> 0:48:09.440 of gold Panda. Search Midnight Chats on iTunes for more 0:48:09.520 --> 0:48:13.560 episodes and to subscribe. For more information, visit loudan quiet 0:48:13.680 --> 0:48:18.080 dot com.