Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan runt Dog,
Speaker 1: but enough about me. My guests today are among the
Speaker 1: greatest songwriters and producers of all time. It's not negotiable.
Speaker 1: Just look at the stats. Together, they've written thirty one
Speaker 1: top ten hits, including sixteen number one, and these are
Speaker 1: songs that have become part of popular culture. Tracks with
Speaker 1: Janet Jackson like Control Nasty, What Have You Done for
Speaker 1: Me Lately? Together Again and All for You. Then there's
Speaker 1: Boys Two Men's Four Seasons of Loneliness and on Bended Knee,
Speaker 1: Human by Human League. They've worked with everyone from Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson and Gwen Stefani to New Edition and Shaka Khan,
Speaker 1: but now they're stepping out in front for the first time.
Speaker 1: On July nine, they released Jam and Lewis Volume One,
Speaker 1: their debut album under their own name. It features help
Speaker 1: from up and comers like Oh Mariah carry Usher, Baby Face,
Speaker 1: Tony Braxton, Mary j. Blige. Maybe heard of them. Like
Speaker 1: their home state of Minnesota. They are cooler than cool.
Speaker 1: I am so happy to welcome to music legends Jimmy
Speaker 1: Jam and Terry Lewis Jimmy Terry, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time today. This is such an honor.
Speaker 1: I owe you every every high school dance I've ever
Speaker 1: had thanks to you. I should say, it's such an
Speaker 1: honor to be speaking to you. Thank You've given me
Speaker 1: so much joy over the years. Oh, thank you. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll try to do nothing to ruin that. Nothing. I
Speaker 1: don't worry. My hopes are very high. You. You have
Speaker 1: your debut solo album due out, Jam and Lewis Volume one.
Speaker 1: In some ways, it's been in the works for thirty
Speaker 1: five years now. Can you tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about the genesis of the album. The origin of the
Speaker 1: Jam and Lewis album actually started, Yeah, thirty five years ago,
Speaker 1: the same year that we were working on an album
Speaker 1: that ended up becoming Control for Jam and Uh. Really
Speaker 1: we had started, you know, working on tracks for our album,
Speaker 1: and then we got the call from a John McClean
Speaker 1: at and M Records who was a and our person,
Speaker 1: and he said, hey, who do you want to work
Speaker 1: with on our roster? And we looked at the roster
Speaker 1: and we said, oh, jam it. We want to do
Speaker 1: Janet And he said, you want to do a couple
Speaker 1: of songs. We said, no, we want to do the
Speaker 1: whole album, and he said, oh, okay, cool. So anyway,
Speaker 1: Janet came to Minneapolis. We started working. When we were done,
Speaker 1: at least what we thought. When we were done with
Speaker 1: the album, we had John come up and we played
Speaker 1: him control and Nasty and when I Think of You
Speaker 1: and Pleasure Principle and Funny out time Wise and let's
Speaker 1: wait a while. And we're thinking we're done, we're good,
Speaker 1: and like all a and our people, he goes, I
Speaker 1: just need one more, just need one more, always one more, right,
Speaker 1: and we're like, now forget you. So anyway, we hop
Speaker 1: in the car and we're gonna go grab a bite
Speaker 1: to eat. Terry puts in a cassette. So now this
Speaker 1: dates us thirty five years ago. He puts in a
Speaker 1: cassette of tracks we were working on for the Jam
Speaker 1: and Lewis album, and about the third track in John
Speaker 1: McClain goes, wait, that's the one I need for Janet.
Speaker 1: He said, what are you talking about? He said, not
Speaker 1: need that track for Janet, play it for and if
Speaker 1: she likes to give it to her. And we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're just giving our songs away now okay, fine, So
Speaker 1: the next day we go to the studio. We just
Speaker 1: turned a song on. We didn't say we were gonna
Speaker 1: play anything. We put the song on. We why Janet,
Speaker 1: and Jane's kind of looking at the TV and then
Speaker 1: she kind of puts her head down and she starts
Speaker 1: bopping a little bit. She walks to the door. She
Speaker 1: pointed me and Terry. When the song goes off, she goes,
Speaker 1: who's that for? And we said, well, you if you
Speaker 1: want it, and she said, oh I wanted that song
Speaker 1: became what have you done for me lately? So it
Speaker 1: ended up being the single that launched her career and
Speaker 1: basically ended hours at least as artists and got us
Speaker 1: into writing and production. So that's why it's been a
Speaker 1: thirty five year journey. And over the years going forward,
Speaker 1: we would do songs with artists and we'd say, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to do something for our Jane and Lewis
Speaker 1: album and they go, you had great, great, And then
Speaker 1: when the song would be done, they'd go, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I gotta keep this for myself. So about four years
Speaker 1: ago we finally got selfish. We were going in the
Speaker 1: Songwriters Hall of Fame and we were on the red carpet,
Speaker 1: and a couple of reporters said, what is it that
Speaker 1: you guys haven't done that you guys still want to do?
Speaker 1: And we looked around on the red carpet, and standing
Speaker 1: a few feet down from us was baby Face. And
Speaker 1: we looked at baby Face and we said, well, we
Speaker 1: never got a round to finishing anything with baby Face,
Speaker 1: working on someone with baby Face. And then we said,
Speaker 1: and we never got around to do in our album.
Speaker 1: And the third thing we said was we never got
Speaker 1: around to actually touring playing our own songs. So those
Speaker 1: were kind of the three things on our checklist that
Speaker 1: we had never gotten around to doing. And then through
Speaker 1: kind of you know, weird circumstances and different things, we
Speaker 1: finally just decided, let's be selfish and let's just do
Speaker 1: our record. And so baby Face was one of the
Speaker 1: first people we reached out to we put our wish
Speaker 1: list together, and you know, that was kind of the
Speaker 1: journey of the album and why it took so long
Speaker 1: to do. And finally we were just like, we're keeping
Speaker 1: the songs for ourselves. You know, at one point in time,
Speaker 1: I think we were thinking of calling the album something
Speaker 1: like songs we were keeping for ourselves or something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, because because really that's what it is, That's
Speaker 1: what these songs are. Are there any songs on this
Speaker 1: new album that date back to I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any that date back that not that far, but you know,
Speaker 1: certainly we have like a book titles or now iPhone
Speaker 1: the titles that might date back that far that we
Speaker 1: pull ideas from in terms of just concepts to write them.
Speaker 1: So the base of those things could possibly be. And
Speaker 1: certainly a lot of inspirations probably date back that part
Speaker 1: you met your baby Face. I love the track that
Speaker 1: he did with him. He don't know nothing about it.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the background behind that song. It's such
Speaker 1: a great track. Well, really, the concept with really all
Speaker 1: the artists on the album is really to make if
Speaker 1: you said the artist's name, what should that song sound like?
Speaker 1: And I remember with baby Face, it was interesting because
Speaker 1: we just wanted to make the most baby Face sounding
Speaker 1: record we could possibly do. And the feeling we wanted
Speaker 1: to try to give people was we call it nostalgia.
Speaker 1: It's that idea of hearing something new which is exciting,
Speaker 1: but it's familiar. It makes you feel good and comfortable, right,
Speaker 1: It's like it's almost like something you you're hearing something
Speaker 1: new for the first time, but it feels like something
Speaker 1: you've heard before, or like meeting an old friend for
Speaker 1: the first time or something. I don't know the different
Speaker 1: ways to kind of analogize it, but that's kind of
Speaker 1: the the idea of it. So when you hear the
Speaker 1: baby Face record, to us, it sounds like a baby
Speaker 1: you know, it sounds like a baby Face record. And
Speaker 1: I remember somebody when we when they first heard it,
Speaker 1: said you know, wow, it doesn't sound like a Jam
Speaker 1: and Lewis record. And we said, well, what does it
Speaker 1: sound like and they said, it sounds like a baby
Speaker 1: Face record and we said, exactly, so it's not you know,
Speaker 1: I think they took it as like a like it
Speaker 1: wasn't a compliment. We took it as a total compliment
Speaker 1: because as writers and producers, that's what we've always tried
Speaker 1: to do, is make the artists sound like the best
Speaker 1: their best self. And with baby Face, it was really
Speaker 1: cool because when we first of all, we got a
Speaker 1: chance to do to start working on it pre COVID,
Speaker 1: so we actually got to sit in the studio together
Speaker 1: and actually right and and record and do all that
Speaker 1: kind of in person, which was which was great. But
Speaker 1: then you know, baby Face allowed us to produce the
Speaker 1: song rather than him producing it, so it made for
Speaker 1: an interesting thing. When he finally heard the finished version
Speaker 1: of the song, he just said, man, that sounds really good.
Speaker 1: And we said, oh, thanks, and he said, no, that
Speaker 1: sounds really good and we said, your baby face, what
Speaker 1: do you think it's gonna sound like. But sometimes the
Speaker 1: artists forget, they kind of forget who they are, like
Speaker 1: why they're so great. But with him, I we also
Speaker 1: realized that because he's so meticulous about doing everything himself,
Speaker 1: he never gets to hear himself in a fresh new way.
Speaker 1: So the fact that he just handed the song off
Speaker 1: to us and said go ahead and finish it, he
Speaker 1: didn't know the choices we were going to make a
Speaker 1: which vocal to use, which guitar part to use, which
Speaker 1: he didn't know. But when he heard it he was
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised. So I got I think he got a
Speaker 1: chance to hear himself and in a way fall back
Speaker 1: in love with himself again, which was very important for
Speaker 1: us really with all the artists, but particularly with baby Face.
Speaker 1: But you mentioned saying you know you you want a
Speaker 1: song to sound like the best version of that artist?
Speaker 1: How do you do that? You put yourself is you
Speaker 1: sort of put your fan hat on and think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm really a fan of this artist. What would I
Speaker 1: want is that? How do you approach that? That's exactly
Speaker 1: how we approach it. We are fans, you know, friends
Speaker 1: and fans of these artists first, and then you know,
Speaker 1: you just imagine, like what would I want to hear
Speaker 1: this particular artist sound like what song would I want
Speaker 1: to hear? And then we try to go for that
Speaker 1: concept and then from there, you know, just hearkening back
Speaker 1: to like a history of it, You've heard great performances
Speaker 1: from all of these artists. So we just try to
Speaker 1: make sure that we are in the ballpark's get great
Speaker 1: performances so that it takes you to the place that
Speaker 1: you feel like you're where you were, but you're in
Speaker 1: a whole new space because, like jam said, the new
Speaker 1: stagia of it. It's comfortable but new. And so I
Speaker 1: think everybody get that that smile that you just had,
Speaker 1: just like that, we try to go for that that
Speaker 1: makes you just feel good. It's it's that that warm
Speaker 1: feeling that the woman fuzzy that that is absolutely right.
Speaker 1: We basically this is a very selfish record. This is
Speaker 1: a record we made for ourselves, and we just hope
Speaker 1: everybody agrees. You know, we made it for ourselves. We
Speaker 1: made the records we wanted to hear these artists do,
Speaker 1: simple as that, and and hopefully people just agree with
Speaker 1: that and go, oh, yeah, that's I agree, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to hear, you know. So we're very selfish
Speaker 1: of us. There's a great story you've told about working
Speaker 1: with with Janet Jackson on I think it was control
Speaker 1: where for the first five days you were just talking
Speaker 1: and she said, well, when are we gonna get started?
Speaker 1: And you said, well we did, and you showed her
Speaker 1: the lyrics too. I think it was control saying based
Speaker 1: on what you've been talking about and how you kind
Speaker 1: of sort of got into her mind in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, what is that preprocess like that that period
Speaker 1: for Janet for example, when you're sort of getting inside
Speaker 1: an artist, how do you know how do you cast
Speaker 1: a song? I guess is the question very interesting? To
Speaker 1: put it that way, I mean, it's interesting process. It's
Speaker 1: the kind of the psychology, psychiatry of human of humanities,
Speaker 1: like to understand or at least listen to what a
Speaker 1: person is feeling in their deepest feelings and then convert
Speaker 1: that into song. We always say what comes from the
Speaker 1: heart reaches the heart. So if it comes from their
Speaker 1: deepest places in their mind and their soul, when they
Speaker 1: deliver it is certainly going to touch anyone that comes
Speaker 1: into contact with it. So we just like to just
Speaker 1: be in their weaving I guess tailoring. I guess we
Speaker 1: call it with song smith smith ing and just the
Speaker 1: personalities of people. We just like to play with that
Speaker 1: because it just it's just an interesting place to be
Speaker 1: and as opposed to writing a song that comes out
Speaker 1: like certainly I can write a concept that comes out
Speaker 1: of my mind, but it comes out a lot better
Speaker 1: when I integrate that artists feelings about that concept, and
Speaker 1: so we always try to include those things. We're always
Speaker 1: aware also that the artist has to you know, they
Speaker 1: have to perform these songs for the rest of their life.
Speaker 1: If they hit you no big, you know, at that
Speaker 1: point in time obviously, as right as in producers, when
Speaker 1: the song leaves the studio, it's done and we move
Speaker 1: on to the next thing. For them, it's just the
Speaker 1: beginning of the journey. They have to talk about it,
Speaker 1: they have to learn it, rehearse it, make videos for it.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that that song really means
Speaker 1: something to the artist that it did, it really resonates
Speaker 1: with them. And with Janet it was cool because when
Speaker 1: she her eyes just lit up when she saw kind
Speaker 1: of the lyrics to control. She just said, well, wait,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what we've been talking about. And we
Speaker 1: said yeah, and she says, whatever we talk about, that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna write about. And it's like yeah, and
Speaker 1: she was I want I want to write about this.
Speaker 1: I want to write about this. And it got her
Speaker 1: excited about becoming a songwriter because we included her in
Speaker 1: the process of actually creating the songs. And but that
Speaker 1: was always our philosophy, like like Terry said, tailoring almost
Speaker 1: like tailoring a suit. You get what people like, the color,
Speaker 1: the lapel, they like that, you know, and all that,
Speaker 1: and now they have something that they can wear. It
Speaker 1: only fits them. It's custom made for them and not
Speaker 1: everybody can wear it. But I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: the philosophy production one give us a question, and I
Speaker 1: guess there's no easy answer. What is it about music
Speaker 1: that makes it's that's an effective conduit for emotion. Just
Speaker 1: reach it straight into your soul. It's the universal language.
Speaker 1: It's we we call it the divine art. It's the
Speaker 1: divine art. And if you think about it, a couple
Speaker 1: of things come to mind. One is it's time to travel.
Speaker 1: So if I said to you, uh, you know, Jordan,
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, on this day, what were you
Speaker 1: doing or whatever? You know, just pick a year and
Speaker 1: you could probably kind of piece it together in your mind.
Speaker 1: You know, well, I might have been going to this school,
Speaker 1: or I might have been you know, whatever it was
Speaker 1: that was happening in your life. If I play a
Speaker 1: song from five or a day in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: you remember everything about it. Remember you know, you might
Speaker 1: might be the girl you're dating. It might be whether
Speaker 1: it's a prom, whether it's you know, oh, I'm in
Speaker 1: my car driving with the top down, or I'm at
Speaker 1: my parents house or um, whatever, and you not only
Speaker 1: remember it, you remember the smell of the food that's
Speaker 1: cooking that day, You're there, sounds of the right you're there. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's divine. Okay, that's divine. And also think about now,
Speaker 1: in the days of zoom or we're doing everything on
Speaker 1: zoom screens. So I know you've been on zoom screens
Speaker 1: with a ton of people write and you look on
Speaker 1: a zoom screen and you see young, old, black, white
Speaker 1: male female. You you see every different people on their right,
Speaker 1: maybe even some people where they don't even speak English necessarily,
Speaker 1: so you may not understand what they're saying. If I
Speaker 1: put a beat on, everybody's going like this. At the
Speaker 1: same time that it's that uniting thing. So I always
Speaker 1: say the zoom screen is like a quilt. Music is
Speaker 1: the threat. So that's what it is. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: very simply the divine art, and it speaks It's God's language.
Speaker 1: To me, it's the it's the language that God speaks
Speaker 1: to all of us, which is why we all understand it.
Speaker 1: That's why we all understand Yeah, and it's in as
Speaker 1: Biblicu it as well. Like that. The mystery of music
Speaker 1: is always fascinated me. And when you think about you
Speaker 1: see in ancient culture as you see remnants of instruments.
Speaker 1: This is back when we were just struggling to be
Speaker 1: able to eat. You know, this was clearly something that
Speaker 1: wasn't just you know, for fun. This was a primal
Speaker 1: need that we needed for some reason. And even though
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily can't totally articulate why, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's roof positive that this is something that we as
Speaker 1: humans need in our lives. Right, that's a beautiful way
Speaker 1: you expressed it. Yeah, Well, silence is scary, and there's
Speaker 1: and there's there's music and everything that happens in life.
Speaker 1: There's a rhythm when you hear the birds sweet, there's
Speaker 1: a melody with it. Uh, there's you know, if you
Speaker 1: hear attractor trailer or a car going by, there's a
Speaker 1: rhythm that there's there's always music and everything. We just
Speaker 1: desired as humans to hear that and to feel that
Speaker 1: that that's the thing that connects us to nature. We
Speaker 1: love to hear the brook babbling in the background and
Speaker 1: the squirrels running up the tree. Is like, we love
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. It's just nature is part
Speaker 1: of humanity. And and the one thing I'll add to
Speaker 1: that is we've always talk about, you know, how in
Speaker 1: schools are taking music out of schools. If you remember
Speaker 1: when you're a kid, the way you learn your alphabet,
Speaker 1: you don't learn it a B, C D. Nobody lines
Speaker 1: up the letters and goes learn these in order. But
Speaker 1: as soon as you put a melody to it, as
Speaker 1: soon as you go A E, C, D, E F G,
Speaker 1: now you remember it. So why would the very route
Speaker 1: of tools that you used to learn the alphabet? Would
Speaker 1: you then go to school and go take music out
Speaker 1: of schools? Because that is the way that you learn.
Speaker 1: It's the reason why you know a kid can't do
Speaker 1: an essay, but he'll sing three minutes of any rap
Speaker 1: song out totally memorize. So it just, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of interesting to me. But once again, I
Speaker 1: just I'll go back to what we originally said, it's
Speaker 1: the divine art, a beautiful way to put it. I
Speaker 1: guess the flip side of that my question too. And
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated to hear your response to this to people
Speaker 1: who have I think, by my account, over a hundred
Speaker 1: top ten songs. What do you do on the days
Speaker 1: when the music is not coming? How do you push
Speaker 1: through that when you're you're you're stuck at a point
Speaker 1: when you're working on a song, how do you how
Speaker 1: do you persevere? Do you did you walk away from
Speaker 1: and get away from it? Is it's just willpower and
Speaker 1: plow through. What what do you do when, uh, when
Speaker 1: you hit a musical problem? Well, Jordan, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a day that the music doesn't come. It's just
Speaker 1: that all those music that comes is not great. There's
Speaker 1: always music, and there's always inspiration. Sometimes there's better inspiration
Speaker 1: and better music, you know. I tell my wife that
Speaker 1: all the times, Like sometimes you just have to wait
Speaker 1: eighteen hours to get that two hours and you know
Speaker 1: that you're inspired to do something, but you have to
Speaker 1: sit there and put the time in to get to
Speaker 1: that two hours. You never know when it's gonna come.
Speaker 1: It might come the first hour, but it might be
Speaker 1: the last hour. You just don't know. Well. The other
Speaker 1: thing too, is that we being a team makes it
Speaker 1: easier because I go through periods where I may not
Speaker 1: be inspired or I may not feel I'm coming up
Speaker 1: with any good ideas, and then but Terry'll inspire something
Speaker 1: like Terry will have an idea or mentioned something and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, that's that's really cool. And
Speaker 1: then it works both ways, you know where that sometimes
Speaker 1: that happens. You know, it's interesting. I remember when we
Speaker 1: were working this is a while back, I think by
Speaker 1: Alexander O'Neil or something we were working on and Terry
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out a lyric. And we've worked and worked
Speaker 1: and work couldn't figure it out. And Terry went to
Speaker 1: like the amusement park or something he went to. He
Speaker 1: went to Disney, and he came back with a million
Speaker 1: ideas because he wasn't thinking about it. So we're kind
Speaker 1: of aware that that is kind of the way that
Speaker 1: that it happens. But there was a Terry talked about
Speaker 1: the usher, the significance and usher in our in our lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well usher especially for me. And I'll tell you I
Speaker 1: went through a period of time where I thought that
Speaker 1: artists didn't really care about music anymore and it just
Speaker 1: didn't feel inspiring to me. So I remember going to
Speaker 1: the studio one night and sitting down in Jams office
Speaker 1: and he had chairs, but I sat on the floor
Speaker 1: because I felt that low. I just my battery was
Speaker 1: just drained. I hated to do it, but I had
Speaker 1: to tell him, hey man, I'm not feeling this anymore.
Speaker 1: It's like I feel like I'm tapped out. I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not inspired. Nothing that anyone says or does makes
Speaker 1: me feel like I want to do music And Jam said, well,
Speaker 1: I really don't feel like that. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: hey man, I'll just keep pushing as far as I can,
Speaker 1: you know, but I just wanted to let you know.
Speaker 1: And along came Usher. We were doing the project with Usher,
Speaker 1: and we started working and Usher showed me that he
Speaker 1: was so into being great. He wanted to sing better,
Speaker 1: he wanted to write better, he wanted to learn, and
Speaker 1: he was so involved in that process that it inspired
Speaker 1: me to want to be part of that process again.
Speaker 1: And basically he restarted my my energy and my engine
Speaker 1: again and he pulled me into the next however long
Speaker 1: I'll feel like this, but that inspiration is so important.
Speaker 1: And just to be able to work with people who
Speaker 1: inspire you and pull you and push you to do
Speaker 1: things that you wouldn't ordinarily do. That's a great story
Speaker 1: and a real story for me because I got to
Speaker 1: a place where I felt like I always feel like
Speaker 1: there's something different, And I think all these experiences that
Speaker 1: we go through right now in music is preparing us
Speaker 1: for whatever else we do in Although music will always
Speaker 1: be a part, that energy and that knowledge base is
Speaker 1: going to actually propel us into something else and be
Speaker 1: the base of that. So I don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: but here, here we are. I'm totally excited. I love
Speaker 1: the journey, and I hope I never arrived at the
Speaker 1: destination because then I don't know what I'll do. So
Speaker 1: as long as the journey is going on. Then somebody
Speaker 1: asked us, they said, you know, what if what if
Speaker 1: you guys like write the perfect song or you guys
Speaker 1: have the perfect thing, and it's like, well, then we're done.
Speaker 1: So I guess we're gonna keep trying to do it,
Speaker 1: but we hope we can actually never get there, because yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like that that people say that first high that
Speaker 1: you chase. You know, you get to the first high
Speaker 1: you get, it's just the perfect high. You just want
Speaker 1: that high again. Yeah, well, I hope I never get
Speaker 1: that because I don't. I just like the consistency of
Speaker 1: all of it. Is beautiful, warm for a long time
Speaker 1: is our is our motto. When we did our very
Speaker 1: first interview, are kind of local Boys make good interview
Speaker 1: uh in Minneapolis after Control came out and the first
Speaker 1: question the interviewer asked us, he said, you guys are
Speaker 1: the hottest producers. How does it feel to be the
Speaker 1: hotest producers? And we said, we don't really want to
Speaker 1: be the hottest producers. We just want to be warm
Speaker 1: for a long time. And then thirty years after that,
Speaker 1: so five years ago when Unbreakable came out with the
Speaker 1: Janet album Unbreakable came out, I remember we talked with
Speaker 1: the same the same gentleman. His name is John Breen,
Speaker 1: by the way, he's still at the same Star Tribune,
Speaker 1: which is the local Minneapolis paper. And he said, wow,
Speaker 1: he said, you guys realize you've had number one records
Speaker 1: in four decades now, in the eighties and nineties, two thousands,
Speaker 1: two thousand, tens. How does it feel to have another
Speaker 1: number one record? And we just said, remember what we
Speaker 1: told you that first interview. He said, what's that? That's
Speaker 1: warm for a long time, and he laughed, but I said,
Speaker 1: that's that's really been our philosophy, you know, and the
Speaker 1: decision making process that that we've gone on. How do
Speaker 1: you stay warm for a long time? I just think
Speaker 1: you make you make decisions. You you don't chase. I
Speaker 1: think we've never chased. We've never really tried to chase trends.
Speaker 1: Were were very aware of of things that are musically
Speaker 1: around us. We never ever shut down. I remember back
Speaker 1: in the day, because we When I say back in
Speaker 1: the day, I'm talking thirty thirty five years ago when
Speaker 1: sampling first started. And I remember people always used to
Speaker 1: ask us about sampling and they'd go, you guys would
Speaker 1: never sample, right, that's that's you know, that's cheat or
Speaker 1: that's whatever. Sample. Yeah, Beethoin never would never sample. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, Beethoven was an innovator, I said, people
Speaker 1: that were innovative in making music. They were trying to
Speaker 1: figure out ways the doctor, the the the the keys
Speaker 1: or the hammers that hit the strings on the piano
Speaker 1: to give different sounds, which is why you end up
Speaker 1: with harpsichords and all kinds of different things. Synthesizers were
Speaker 1: no different, and then sampling technology was no different. But
Speaker 1: what I loved about sampling personally was one it was
Speaker 1: the foundation of hip hop music, which we love hip
Speaker 1: hop music. The other thing is, you know, as a
Speaker 1: tool to bridge generations together. There's nothing like hearing a
Speaker 1: sample of a song that you go, I mean, we
Speaker 1: we did. I remember twenty years ago was all for
Speaker 1: You with Janet and I remember we sampled a song
Speaker 1: called the Global Love, which was changed, and it was
Speaker 1: a song that I played as a DJ back in
Speaker 1: the day, and I always thought, man, that would be
Speaker 1: cool to sample that. We sampled that song, and I
Speaker 1: remember Janet walking into the studio and she loved it,
Speaker 1: but she had never heard the original song, so for
Speaker 1: her it was a brand new song that she was loving.
Speaker 1: But I remember Shawnette, one of her dancers, heard it
Speaker 1: and said, oh, it's a Van Dross. I remember this.
Speaker 1: I love this song and I knew that, okay. So
Speaker 1: if someone that's never heard the sample loves it and
Speaker 1: somebody that remembers the sample loves it, that's how you
Speaker 1: bring people together. It was the same thing with Ventura
Speaker 1: Highway used in um Someone to Call My Lover, or
Speaker 1: or Rhythm Nation, which was slammed the Family Stone, Thank You.
Speaker 1: You know. So we've always embraced the technology, the idea
Speaker 1: that you know, just moving forward and staying fresh and
Speaker 1: being aware of ideas that are out there. But then
Speaker 1: we always try to remember then the kind of the
Speaker 1: musical roots of you know, melody, great melodies, great lyrics
Speaker 1: and all those things. So we've always kind of combined
Speaker 1: the two things, and our ear that we've come up
Speaker 1: with in is great. We started with analog tape, you know,
Speaker 1: we went through um, you know, digital tape, which we
Speaker 1: never really messed with a whole lot. Terry got into
Speaker 1: like a computer stuff really early, as far as the
Speaker 1: digital workstations on computers, which I thought was crazy because
Speaker 1: I was like this, the sounds terrible, and this will
Speaker 1: never work, This will never work. And of course now
Speaker 1: we live in a day where everything is like that.
Speaker 1: And our album is a great hybrid of the baby
Speaker 1: Face song, which was analog tape, the Mariah song, which
Speaker 1: was pretty much done in my laptop, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So it kind of runs the gamut of
Speaker 1: of of everything technologically. Also, that was always gonna ask
Speaker 1: him this new record. It's like a great Quincy Jones record.
Speaker 1: It's a collection of all your incredible songs done by
Speaker 1: a collection of always amazing singers. But with all these
Speaker 1: different voices and textures and styles. I was blown away
Speaker 1: by how he unified it sounds. Was that a challenge
Speaker 1: to keep it all sounding cohesive? I guess it is
Speaker 1: the worst. Well to use Terry's analogy of of of
Speaker 1: a tailor, the thing is, as I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you can make a suit for somebody, right, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna pick you know, I like black, or I like
Speaker 1: a you know this kind of stitch, or I like
Speaker 1: this kind of lapel or three button or four button
Speaker 1: or double breasted, or you can do that, right, But
Speaker 1: the thing that's going to remain the same is the
Speaker 1: actual tailor that's making the suit. So the threads in
Speaker 1: the suit, the way things the quality in which things
Speaker 1: are sown, I guess I would say is gonna be
Speaker 1: the common threat. So you could look at a a
Speaker 1: red single breasted suit at a blue double breasted suit,
Speaker 1: and there you will realize that they're totally different, but
Speaker 1: the same Taylor did that suit. I can tell from
Speaker 1: the quality of it. And that's the way we always
Speaker 1: think of ourselves as as producers. So the quality is
Speaker 1: the thing, and also the way we sequence the album,
Speaker 1: because it's always nice when we get the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do whole albums where we can actually start with a
Speaker 1: song and end with a song. So in this case,
Speaker 1: the album starts with Sounds of Blackness, which we always
Speaker 1: think is our foundation and was the foundation of Perspective
Speaker 1: Records thirty years ago when we did Yeah, so thirty
Speaker 1: years since Optimistic started and that was the record that
Speaker 1: launched Perspective Records. But then we ended it actually going
Speaker 1: back even further with reuniting Morri's Day and Jerome together,
Speaker 1: Terry's brother Jerome together along with the Roots who Questlove,
Speaker 1: Luke Kleslo's mind to finally work with Moore's Day on something.
Speaker 1: You know. It's just a nice kind of circle that
Speaker 1: that happens. It's like the beginning and sort of the
Speaker 1: new beginning, I guess you could call it, you know,
Speaker 1: in a sense. So all of that is important, and
Speaker 1: we hope people listen. I know that they're going to
Speaker 1: download individual songs or however they want to listen to it.
Speaker 1: It's up to them. But I would love for everybody
Speaker 1: to listen to the whole album from start to finish.
Speaker 1: I would love for that to happen. Books it like
Speaker 1: for you doing that track with with Morris and the Rous,
Speaker 1: I mean, that must have been emotional for you in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. No, it was. It was great
Speaker 1: because it was funny. Quest Love always tells a story
Speaker 1: when we first met for the first time, we had
Speaker 1: a group. Uh. I think it was Solo. Maybe we
Speaker 1: had a group called Solo. I think it was Solo,
Speaker 1: and we wanted oh no, no, no, it wasn't Solo.
Speaker 1: It was actually um Angel. It was Angel Grant and
Speaker 1: I think it was Angel Grant and we actually they
Speaker 1: were playing somewhere in Philly and doing a big outdoor
Speaker 1: thing and we, you know, we asked could we come
Speaker 1: beyond the show, and he was like, oh, yeah, that'd
Speaker 1: be great. He didn't realize that we were actually gonna
Speaker 1: show up, and they were like, Jimmy, jim Terry Lewis
Speaker 1: are here. Oh my god, they're they're like in the band,
Speaker 1: They're like back in this artist stuff, and it just
Speaker 1: kind of blew his mind ever since that that point
Speaker 1: in time, just how hands on we were and how
Speaker 1: much we cared about the artist. But we always thought
Speaker 1: our our role was really to protect the artist and
Speaker 1: make him look great, and that was the case then.
Speaker 1: But we met and we hit it off, and he
Speaker 1: was shocked that we actually knew their music, because I
Speaker 1: think that people thought, well, maybe we don't listen to
Speaker 1: hip hop or whatever, but we totally knew the music
Speaker 1: and we hit it off, so it was like a
Speaker 1: dream come true. He actually interviewed Mores for his show
Speaker 1: that he does, The Quel Less Show, and they were
Speaker 1: talking about that, just how his mind is blown. The
Speaker 1: quest levels said that the gateway to Prince for him
Speaker 1: was the Time. And we're forty years since the first
Speaker 1: Time album this year, but he said, Prince, he you know,
Speaker 1: heard of him, and he kind of heard his songs
Speaker 1: but wasn't didn't really get it. But when he heard
Speaker 1: the Time, he was like, oh my god, I love this.
Speaker 1: These guys are great. And then you know, somebody said
Speaker 1: to him, well, yeah, you know, but you know Princess
Speaker 1: producing all these songs, and that made him then go
Speaker 1: to Prince. So now we obviously he's a huge Prince fan.
Speaker 1: But his roots in uh it's so to speak, no
Speaker 1: pun attended. His roots in jam and Lewis were literally
Speaker 1: the Time. So this was a big full circle moment
Speaker 1: for him. I think, I mean, the whole album feels
Speaker 1: like a victory lap in so many ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: with all the friends, all your friends, all the people
Speaker 1: that you've worked with for for so many years. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just such a great collection. I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 1: how do you know when a song is done? The
Speaker 1: easiest way to know when a song is done. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, Jordan's see this hand right here. When somebody
Speaker 1: has a crowbar and probably a gun of some kind
Speaker 1: and they come and pry it out of out of
Speaker 1: this hand, it's like you never want to let your
Speaker 1: babies go, you know. Um. Like I said, it's it's
Speaker 1: very difficult because you never feel like it's perfect. I
Speaker 1: want to get this perfect, and so I guess once again,
Speaker 1: if I make the perfect song, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: plick because I'll be facing that forever. The easy answer
Speaker 1: would be when they pry it out of our hands.
Speaker 1: But by the way, by the way, I will say,
Speaker 1: you realize, when we're producing, what we're doing is we're
Speaker 1: listening for mistakes. So as we're doing the songs, all
Speaker 1: we're hearing is the mistakes. What we can make better?
Speaker 1: What can how can we change this? How can we
Speaker 1: do that? There is a certain point where with this
Speaker 1: album where we felt we thought we were done with
Speaker 1: this song when two things happened. One was we no
Speaker 1: longer heard the mistakes. We could listen to the song
Speaker 1: from start to finish and not go, oh, we gotta
Speaker 1: fix it. We gotta change that we gotta we could
Speaker 1: just listen to it and just enjoy it. That was
Speaker 1: one thing. The other piece of it, though, was when
Speaker 1: we felt we couldn't wait for the artists to hear it.
Speaker 1: We would get to a certain point and then we'd
Speaker 1: hear it and we'd go, I can't wait for Tony
Speaker 1: Braxton to hear this. I can't wait for Mary J.
Speaker 1: Blige to hear that. You know, can't wait for boys
Speaker 1: them in to hear this. And that was the other
Speaker 1: thing that kind of told us that it felt like
Speaker 1: it was done. So it was more the feeling. We
Speaker 1: just had a feeling that we were we were ready
Speaker 1: to share it, and then even when we were ready
Speaker 1: to share it, as Terry said, they still had to
Speaker 1: come pry it out of our hands to get it
Speaker 1: down to the last Maybe the mix could be a
Speaker 1: little bit better. I remember who I think it was.
Speaker 1: It might have been a Leonardo da Vinci quote. Arts
Speaker 1: never finished, just abandoned. Yeah, that's right. What's the best
Speaker 1: compliment that an artist can can give to you when
Speaker 1: you're when you when you just you sit them down,
Speaker 1: you have the final mix, you're doing the play back.
Speaker 1: What's the best response that that they can give to you. Wow,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of them, actually, I can tell you overall.
Speaker 1: I'll give you one from just overall career wise. One
Speaker 1: one thing we always wanted to do was we always
Speaker 1: did our homework on the artist. We always knew what
Speaker 1: kind of song we would want to hear them do.
Speaker 1: And so I remember working with Barry White, and I
Speaker 1: remember that we had done a demo for the song
Speaker 1: kind of we have done the track, but we I
Speaker 1: kind of tried to sing like Barry White, and I'm
Speaker 1: on there like oh, and I'm trying to sing right
Speaker 1: and it's hilarious because I can't sing right. I remember
Speaker 1: when we got done, we played in the song and
Speaker 1: the song goes off and there's just kind of a
Speaker 1: moment of silence, and we said, um, Mr White, are
Speaker 1: you was that? That? Was that? Okay? How's it sound?
Speaker 1: And he said he just reared back and had this
Speaker 1: big laugh. He said, oh, sounds like me. And we said,
Speaker 1: sounds like me. That compliment we've gotten from Earth Wind
Speaker 1: and Fire, from the Isley Brothers, from when we get
Speaker 1: that compliment from you know, the legacy artists that we've
Speaker 1: had a chance to work with, that to me, is
Speaker 1: the best compliment it because we've captured it. I remember
Speaker 1: even we worked with Lionel Ritchie and Lionel Richie laughed
Speaker 1: when we played that. We did a song called Don't
Speaker 1: Want to Lose You and he heard the song and
Speaker 1: he just laughed. He laughed. He said when he heard it,
Speaker 1: he said, oh my god. He says, you basically wrote
Speaker 1: my song, like you took my song and just rewrote it.
Speaker 1: But it sounds coming from you. I can accept it,
Speaker 1: like I could never write that song again, but you
Speaker 1: guys managed to do it. So that to me is
Speaker 1: always the biggest compliment his career wise, I think, and
Speaker 1: I think for our album. I think the moment that
Speaker 1: I remember on our album is when we were working
Speaker 1: with Boys two men, and I remember two things happened.
Speaker 1: One was um Sean came to the studio Nate in
Speaker 1: the group actually asked could we put real strings on
Speaker 1: our the song we were doing, And so we did
Speaker 1: a session at Capital Studio's historic studios, right, and we
Speaker 1: have Susie Kadayama who's our string arranger, and she did
Speaker 1: this beautiful arrangement with hearts and strings and French horn
Speaker 1: and all this beautiful stuff. The thing that happens in
Speaker 1: sessions like that is the string players will come in
Speaker 1: play their part, and as soon as you say, okay,
Speaker 1: that's it, they're out the door. And Seawan came to
Speaker 1: the session to listen to it because he hadn't heard
Speaker 1: the song in a year where whenever they had done
Speaker 1: the vocals on it. So he's watching the string players
Speaker 1: and nobody's leaving, and he's like going, He's thinking, well,
Speaker 1: why why isn't anybody leaving? And and even Susie was like,
Speaker 1: you guys gotta be quiet because I gotta do these
Speaker 1: couple of other parts. But everybody wanted to hear the
Speaker 1: end of the song. They wanted to hear how it
Speaker 1: turned out. So that was kind of the first sign
Speaker 1: that there might be something special happening with the boys
Speaker 1: them in song. The second piece was he came to
Speaker 1: the studio right before COVID. He came to the studio
Speaker 1: and he just said, hey, how did our song turn out?
Speaker 1: How did it? And we said, oh, we can play
Speaker 1: it for you, and we put him in the chair
Speaker 1: in our studio and in our studio we are doing mixes.
Speaker 1: This mixes you're hearing now our stereo mixes, but we're
Speaker 1: also doing eleven point one surround mixes of all the songs.
Speaker 1: We played him the eleven ones around version of the
Speaker 1: song and he cried when he heard it, and what
Speaker 1: he articulated to us was that it was that feeling
Speaker 1: like everything you know we talked about time travel with
Speaker 1: with music. His mind was going back to growing up
Speaker 1: listening to like the New Addition songs that we had done,
Speaker 1: and listening to those songs, even taking the name New
Speaker 1: The name Boys the Men came from a song we
Speaker 1: wrote for New Addition, and then when they did their audition,
Speaker 1: uh for Michael Bivens from New Addition, they sang can
Speaker 1: You Stand the Rain, which was a song they wrote.
Speaker 1: And so later on in life when we got a
Speaker 1: chance to do Four Seasons and Loneliness and we got
Speaker 1: to do on Bended Knee, that was like, you know,
Speaker 1: a dream come true for them, actually working with people
Speaker 1: who they had grown up listening to. So now to
Speaker 1: now hear a song, current new song that has all
Speaker 1: those same elements that they want in a song, you know,
Speaker 1: chord changes and great lyrics and and modulations and and
Speaker 1: dramatic effects and live strings and live instruments. Just it
Speaker 1: just made him cry, and he just said, I hope
Speaker 1: people understand this. And after being an artist and you're
Speaker 1: being told you know, demographic here and analytics here and
Speaker 1: algorithms here and streaming here, that to me wasn't the
Speaker 1: conversations we had. We just said, let's go make a
Speaker 1: great song. And I think he heard all of that
Speaker 1: in that moment and it just brought tears to his eyes.
Speaker 1: And so that, to me is the biggest compliment, is
Speaker 1: when the artists fall back in love with themselves so
Speaker 1: to speak, because I think that's a good sign that
Speaker 1: the fans will fall back in love with them currently
Speaker 1: not what they used to do, but now what they're
Speaker 1: doing now. And I just think there's something very powerful
Speaker 1: about that. An incredible track of falling in love with yourselves.
Speaker 1: You you are doing something that's really cool series on
Speaker 1: Twitter right now, thirty five years and thirty five days
Speaker 1: where you're going over your your amazing career and legacy.
Speaker 1: It's been so cool to to watch the video clips
Speaker 1: that you've been sharing. What is there anything a song
Speaker 1: and achievement, anything at all that really stands out above
Speaker 1: the rest as something that is just truly really that
Speaker 1: that that moment that that you were just to driving
Speaker 1: for voice and what what have you had? One like that,
Speaker 1: one that really is just means more to you in
Speaker 1: your professional life than than any others. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: I mean for me, I'll just say because Terry and
Speaker 1: I were talking about it the other day. So the song.
Speaker 1: We always say, it's tough to say favorite song because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons that's something could be your
Speaker 1: favorite song. It could be the actual process of recording it,
Speaker 1: that's great. There could be um, the result of the song,
Speaker 1: how it touched people. It could be because you know
Speaker 1: all the million copies are you know, top the charts.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of things to be favorite
Speaker 1: in about things, I guess, but the song we I guess.
Speaker 1: I would put it like if there was a time
Speaker 1: capsule and you had to put one of our songs
Speaker 1: in a time capsule, and then a hundred years later
Speaker 1: somebody was going to open it up and it says
Speaker 1: jam and Lewis, and you wanted to know everything about
Speaker 1: jam and Lewis in one song. The song would be
Speaker 1: optimistic by the sounds of black and so I think
Speaker 1: for and then there's other reasons beyond that. But we
Speaker 1: were talking about when we went over to when we
Speaker 1: talk about the international language of music, and when we
Speaker 1: were in London, uh and and did when they toured
Speaker 1: over there. We were there and it's probably for an
Speaker 1: audience to connect to the stage. I mean, what was
Speaker 1: supposed to be I think a forty five minutes show
Speaker 1: turned into a two hour praise. Yeah, it was. I've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it. And to know that songs
Speaker 1: we were involved with have that effect on people, um was,
Speaker 1: that was just mind blowing to me. So so I
Speaker 1: think that would probably be the most impactful moment is
Speaker 1: seeing something live. I think in the studio, our most
Speaker 1: impactful moment would probably be Michael Jackson recording with Michael.
Speaker 1: I mean that that was we were like little kids
Speaker 1: when he went in the studio all calm. This was
Speaker 1: to do screen with with Janet and Janet. We were
Speaker 1: in New York and Janet said, okay, I'll do my
Speaker 1: vocal after Michael does his, and We've said okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So Michael goes in and does his vocal. But he
Speaker 1: goes in and he's breaking every studio rule, right, He's
Speaker 1: wearing jangly stuff and hard to NEOs and just all
Speaker 1: the things that they say don't do in the studio. Right,
Speaker 1: And the song comes on and he starts dance. It's
Speaker 1: like the chance Maiden in Devil or something like. He
Speaker 1: starts spinning and doing his things, and Terry and I
Speaker 1: were like, we were like at the concert, we were like,
Speaker 1: we're streaming like little girls. Man, it was like it
Speaker 1: was unbelievable. And then it was funny. When he finished,
Speaker 1: he just kind of calmly goes, how was that what?
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're kind of stammering, and he goes, do
Speaker 1: you want me to do it again? And well, yeah, yeah, Mike, yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead and do it again. That that's a good idea, right,
Speaker 1: So Janet leans into us because she's sitting behind us,
Speaker 1: and she leans in between us, and she just goes,
Speaker 1: because we're in New York by the way, she goes,
Speaker 1: I'll do my vocal in Minneapolis heart of following Michael's performance.
Speaker 1: And then the funny thing about it was we went
Speaker 1: to we went to Minneapolis, we did Janet's vocal. When
Speaker 1: Michael heard it, he said, oh, Janet's vocals sounds really good.
Speaker 1: And we said yeah, thanks, He said, no, that sounds
Speaker 1: really good. Where did she record that? And we said
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis. He said, oh, he said, I want to
Speaker 1: come to Minneapolis. The ultimate competitor, even with his sister, right,
Speaker 1: just the ultimate Competitor. But obviously the song turned out
Speaker 1: great and all of that, and but yeah, that that
Speaker 1: was pretty much impactful studio moment for sure. We've we've
Speaker 1: had a few. We've had a few over our years. Yes,
Speaker 1: you have it. It means so much to so many,
Speaker 1: including me. It's been such a joint and honor speaking
Speaker 1: before I let you go, My last question. Name of
Speaker 1: your album, Jam and Lewis Volume one, Volume two. I
Speaker 1: hope there's plans for that. What do you think there
Speaker 1: any time on the horizon for for a sequel? I
Speaker 1: think we can safely say there will be a volume two.
Speaker 1: Actually already started down that role. But let's get by
Speaker 1: um one out. Got you. The thing I said is
Speaker 1: like I always said Lebron James when he went to Miami,
Speaker 1: when he left and he went to Miami, and I
Speaker 1: remember at the at the big press conference, and he said,
Speaker 1: not one, not too not three, not four. Okay, So
Speaker 1: that's the way we feel about it. We've feel like
Speaker 1: we're on a new chapter of our life right now.
Speaker 1: We're really excited about it, a little nervous because I
Speaker 1: guess anything important to you're a little nervous about. But yes,
Speaker 1: Terry said, no, Volume two was already not only in
Speaker 1: our minds, but already in progress. But really we're charged
Speaker 1: right now to make sure that Volume one gets the
Speaker 1: love and respect that we hopefully it's deserving of. And
Speaker 1: we want to make sure that's happy and and make
Speaker 1: sure that the artists are happy because to me, it's
Speaker 1: an elevation moment for them and it's a celebration really
Speaker 1: of this thirty five year journey to get here. Yes,
Speaker 1: Shimmy jam Terry Lewis, thank you so much for your music,
Speaker 1: your time today. It's been an honor and a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thanks. We hope you enjoyed this
Speaker 1: episode of Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
Speaker 1: check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. B