Speaker 1: As a woman in full labor, getting into a car
Speaker 1: is not an easy feat or a comfortable thing at all.
Speaker 2: Evening, everyone, Welcome to a new episode of the podcast
Speaker 2: number eighty eight. You've not come here for Coronavirus Chat, obviously,
Speaker 2: but simply to say a lot has happened in the
Speaker 2: weeks since we started putting out the first few episodes
Speaker 2: in this new series of midnight chats. No doubt with
Speaker 2: many of you, your usual routines, including your podcast listening habits,
Speaker 2: have been turned upside down by what's going on. We
Speaker 2: just hope that whenever and wherever you're listening to this,
Speaker 2: that you and those close to you are healthy and
Speaker 2: staying connected. Hopefully this podcast can give you a brief
Speaker 2: distraction from all that, and we'll keep them coming as
Speaker 2: best we can. But on to tonight's guest, Dan Snaith,
Speaker 2: a man who produces music under many guyses, but it's
Speaker 2: best known as Ariboo. The chat you're about to hear
Speaker 2: was recorded in the first week of February this year,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Dan was kind enough to invite me around
Speaker 2: to his house in North London. We wound our way
Speaker 2: through his hallway and down a set of very narrow
Speaker 2: stairs and into his basement studio where he works every
Speaker 2: day and makes his music. You may or may not
Speaker 2: pick this up on the recording. I can't remember if
Speaker 2: I left it in, but part way through our conversation upstairs,
Speaker 2: his young kids arrived back from school, and after we
Speaker 2: recorded this, they were leaping about in his kitchen doing
Speaker 2: a impromptu dance competition, which was a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: and they were very sweet and very welcoming, as was
Speaker 2: Dan himself. As many of you will know, Cariboo has
Speaker 2: a new album out. It's available now and it's called Suddenly.
Speaker 2: I recommend you check that out. Going into it, I
Speaker 2: wasn't quite sure what to expect from the chat because
Speaker 2: as a producer, Dan has a reputation as a real technician,
Speaker 2: someone who takes very seriously his craft, and that's true.
Speaker 2: But the guy I met was very warm and conversational
Speaker 2: and deeply caring about his family and the major issues
Speaker 2: affecting the wider world, and just great company. It doesn't
Speaker 2: surprise me that he's really well liked within his community.
Speaker 2: So let's get into this. Stay safe, support your loved
Speaker 2: ones and your neighbors, and your favorite podcasts. This is
Speaker 2: Caribou on episode eighty eight at midnight chats and a
Speaker 2: quick reminder. As well as this podcast, we also make
Speaker 2: a monthly independent music magazine. It's called Loud and Quiet,
Speaker 2: and subscribing to that supports what we do and helps
Speaker 2: fund this podcast. All the information is at loud and
Speaker 2: Quiet dot com slash subscribe. In terms of just to
Speaker 2: describe to listeners of exactly where we are. You've been
Speaker 2: so kind as to let us record this in your
Speaker 2: home studio. I can see an incredible amount of vinyl records.
Speaker 2: How many do you reckon? You've got there?
Speaker 1: Well, this is just there's something. They're also taking over
Speaker 1: the living room upstairs. That's not all of it. No, no,
Speaker 1: this isn't all of it. It's maybe a thousand records
Speaker 1: or something, and then there's a couple more upstairs.
Speaker 2: But we got over here.
Speaker 1: Then we've got some Fender Roads and an Oberheim Obi
Speaker 1: eight and a Juno one oh six synth modular synth
Speaker 1: over there. There's like a kind of black curtain over here,
Speaker 1: behind which there's a drum kit for drum recording, and
Speaker 1: then a little use that as a vocal booth as well.
Speaker 1: But it's worth saying that it's a mess. I would say,
Speaker 1: at the moment, there's stuff everywhere, it's hard to find
Speaker 1: a spot to put two chairs down here.
Speaker 2: At the moment, can you tell me a little bit
Speaker 2: about this space, and like how long you've been making
Speaker 2: music in this room? How far does it go back?
Speaker 2: And what did it used to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we moved into this house when just before
Speaker 1: our first child was born, which is about eight and
Speaker 1: a half years closer to nine years ago now, and
Speaker 1: this room is this is it's a classic London terraced house.
Speaker 1: And this was like a coal hole, you know, with
Speaker 1: a you couldn't stand up in it. You could barely
Speaker 1: stand up in it mud floor. But obviously when we
Speaker 1: were looking for a place, I was like, I'd never
Speaker 1: had a room that was like a studio in any sense,
Speaker 1: Like this room at least now has sound proofed and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And so that was the thing we
Speaker 1: were looking for. And so we moved in here and
Speaker 1: converted this place with the help of some very able
Speaker 1: bodied people who know how to build things. And I'm
Speaker 1: not pretending that I did it myself. Let's put it
Speaker 1: that way. Finished this little room down here and put
Speaker 1: a bunch of gear in here and then made Our
Speaker 1: Love and the new record suddenly in this room, and
Speaker 1: I'm here every day.
Speaker 2: I was gonna says, spent a lot of hours in here.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Given the fact that it's in the basement of your house,
Speaker 2: how does that mean that your work life, if you like,
Speaker 2: and your sort of home life interlink. I mean it's
Speaker 2: literally you can sort of knit from having your breakfast
Speaker 2: to coming downstairs. Like, how does that actually work on
Speaker 2: a daily basis? What does your sort of routine that?
Speaker 1: Like, those two parts of my life were completely inseparable
Speaker 1: right there together, And wake up and take the kids,
Speaker 1: get the kids fed, and take them to school, and
Speaker 1: then I'm back down here. Kind of until I used
Speaker 1: to work all hours, every day, all the time. Now
Speaker 1: I work much more kind of nine to five and
Speaker 1: then come up. You know, I just emerge from that.
Speaker 1: My kids are used to be like popping out of
Speaker 1: that door at the top of these little stairs from
Speaker 1: the basement and being dad in dad mode until they're
Speaker 1: in bed, and then maybe later when everybody else is
Speaker 1: going to sleep in the house, I get back down
Speaker 1: here for another few hours.
Speaker 2: To sneak back down, Yeah, exact midnight like the equivons,
Speaker 2: like a midnight face, but with just samples or something exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean it is.
Speaker 1: That's one thing I love about it is that it's here, available, ready,
Speaker 1: whenever you know it's I don't have to think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going home for the day from a studio and
Speaker 1: it's always here if I need to run down and
Speaker 1: make a note of something or record something, or do
Speaker 1: you know, it's right there.
Speaker 2: When you're working on a project. Does it ever get
Speaker 2: to consuming? Because I suppose the opposite argument that you know,
Speaker 2: people work in different ways that they some people would
Speaker 2: prefer to have a studio somewhere else that they the
Speaker 2: moment they walk out the door, they kind of shut
Speaker 2: the door and they're like, well, I'm coming back to
Speaker 2: that tomorrow, whereas you're sort of like this is so accessible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it can be like I'm just gonna nit down and
Speaker 2: just sort that. So, yeah, there's any kind of friction
Speaker 2: those in that sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The I mean the thing that the risk would be
Speaker 1: that you can never turn off, which is a kind
Speaker 1: of contemporary not just in my line of work but
Speaker 1: in everybody's work these days, is you're expected to be
Speaker 1: available at all hours. But that used to be the
Speaker 1: situation when before having kids, I was just it was
Speaker 1: always there and I'd always disappear. Now I'm just have
Speaker 1: developed the habit of delineating that those chunks of my
Speaker 1: life more. For a couple of weeks working on this album,
Speaker 1: Sam Floating Points was away on tour DJing, and he
Speaker 1: was like Dan, like the studios. He's got a proper,
Speaker 1: real amazing studio. You can see little videos of it
Speaker 1: online and stuff. It's incredible and it's you know, a
Speaker 1: dedicated space where you go and you open it up,
Speaker 1: and you lock it up at the end of the
Speaker 1: day and you go home. And I recorded in there
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks and it was really productive,
Speaker 1: probably because he's got it's like a vintage synthesizer museum
Speaker 1: in there, but also I did get a sense of that,
Speaker 1: which I've never had a separate space. I've always worked
Speaker 1: like from beside my bed, you know, in my bedroom
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager and getting older, you know,
Speaker 1: the same thing. Until we moved into this house and
Speaker 1: I got a sense of that, Oh yeah, it can
Speaker 1: be good too, because they're less distraction and things like
Speaker 1: that as well, So you go there for a concentrated
Speaker 1: period of time, but there's nothing else to do there.
Speaker 3: You're just working all the time.
Speaker 1: But in the end, I mean it's evident in the
Speaker 1: music that I make, particularly on this album, my personal
Speaker 1: life ends up in the music that I make. So
Speaker 1: it makes sense for them to be alongside one another.
Speaker 2: And even though we can see an awful lot of
Speaker 2: music here today, all these fun and records that we've
Speaker 2: already mentioned, you did have a bit of a clear
Speaker 2: out this week. You took some took some music, and
Speaker 2: you took some equipment down to your local ox VM shop. Yeah,
Speaker 2: beyond the obvious reasons of that, being able to go
Speaker 2: to a good cause and make some some money for charity. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what do you like about doing that? Because you know,
Speaker 2: it always seems to get a bit of traction when
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, Carabow's left some some sort of gems
Speaker 2: in the local charity shop. So what was it that
Speaker 2: you like about doing that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I did it once before.
Speaker 1: I just love's say, like, these record shelves look full,
Speaker 1: but actually if I if I kind of grab them
Speaker 1: and I pulled, there's like a good couple inches on
Speaker 1: either of these, yea, and before there's look, there's even
Speaker 1: like four or five inches spare down there. Before that
Speaker 1: clear out, these was like wedged in here till it
Speaker 1: was like a solid wall. You couldn't get a finger
Speaker 1: in anywhere. So the ones upstairs there's actually more space.
Speaker 1: It looks it doesn't look like I've had a clear out,
Speaker 1: does it.
Speaker 2: It's still looking pretty jammed. I've got to ask as well,
Speaker 2: how do you how do you arrange your vinyl? Is
Speaker 2: it via alphabetical? Is it genre?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it any system?
Speaker 1: Well, this is all It's like dance music, club music
Speaker 1: up there, hip hop down here? These three this is
Speaker 1: more experimental music. So upstairs is like jazz and rock,
Speaker 1: and it's genre basically.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: How often do you visit a vinyl record? You listen
Speaker 2: to it every day? You like a couple times a week?
Speaker 2: Do you never?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I mean, I find myself going through kind of periods, Well,
Speaker 2: listen to it lots, and then maybe a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks will go by, and then I'll won't listen untill
Speaker 2: and then I'll go back again. Do you know what
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 1: I mean, the honest answer at the moment and part
Speaker 1: of the reason for the clear out was that barely ever.
Speaker 1: You know, music's available to us all digitally, universally all
Speaker 1: the time, and a lot of these records that I
Speaker 1: really love I've ripped onto a digital file and that's
Speaker 1: the way I'm going to sample them and manipulate them
Speaker 1: as inside a computer. Eventually, I've got down to the
Speaker 1: point where I'm just keeping the things that mean something
Speaker 1: sentimental to me, which is still a lot. Once before,
Speaker 1: I'd taken a pile of them to the same ox
Speaker 1: vam without intending it to be a thing, just like
Speaker 1: taking them in there, and they posted on social media like.
Speaker 3: Hey, dance, just been in here, and they were.
Speaker 1: Like we we're swamped, and so I was like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: actually that seems to be a big part of what
Speaker 1: I like about. You know, I've spent my whole life
Speaker 1: learning about music, accumulating music that I like. And one
Speaker 1: thing that I can do that seems nice and generous
Speaker 1: and people appreciate it is like some kind of sharing it.
Speaker 1: This obviously is like raising money for charity is the
Speaker 1: other thing. But realizing that people have that connection with like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's what and I get that I totally remember as
Speaker 1: a kid, and even now, you know, oh, what's that
Speaker 1: person been listening to that? If somebody who's music I'm
Speaker 1: interested in. So this time I was like, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: do a proper clear out, get a few one hundred
Speaker 1: records together and take it down there all at once.
Speaker 1: And yeah, apparently it was. It was very busy, busy yesterday.
Speaker 3: It's good.
Speaker 2: But there are a few bits of kit as well,
Speaker 2: because is this something presumably you kind of like quite
Speaker 2: like the idea that somebody picks a bit, picks a
Speaker 2: bit of kit, plays around with it, maybe ends up
Speaker 2: on somebody else's album one day, whoever they might be.
Speaker 1: There were a few bits of equipment. I've done that before.
Speaker 1: I've done it just on the eBay and things, you know,
Speaker 1: just sold things. And I sold a little sampler that
Speaker 1: we used to use on stage and I had forgotten
Speaker 1: to like delete the samples off it, and the person
Speaker 1: who bought it was just like, hey, I just arrived,
Speaker 1: and by the way, are you Caribou because hit this button,
Speaker 1: like a part of your record appears, you know, it's
Speaker 1: things that we'd be triggering during the show. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, I probably should have, but it's Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nice to feel that kind of sense of lineage
Speaker 1: and you know, connection. I imagine people might like that.
Speaker 1: I like that idea. For example, the last album Our
Speaker 1: Love was mixed on Nigel Godrich's mixing desk, and like
Speaker 1: that was amazing to think like it was from I
Speaker 1: think it's called Ocean Way Studios and Los Angeles he
Speaker 1: got it from. And to have that sense of like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this has been so much amazing music's come through here,
Speaker 1: and he's mixed so many amazing things on there in
Speaker 1: this room.
Speaker 3: You can see.
Speaker 1: This is like not a kind of don't have that
Speaker 1: thing of big grand studio equipment and stuff, but I
Speaker 1: like that idea.
Speaker 2: Yea, it's kind of appropriate that we're here recording this
Speaker 2: podcast in your studio that's at home, because home is
Speaker 2: a real like central theme to Suddenly, which is the
Speaker 2: new Caribou album. Home and family and life and love
Speaker 2: and loss and all those things. So just tell me
Speaker 2: a little bit about how those elements those things is
Speaker 2: everyday things Violes Moss make their way into your music.
Speaker 1: Over the years, I've become comfortable having more and more
Speaker 1: of that personal stuff end up in my music. It's
Speaker 1: a requires some kind of degree of confidence to know
Speaker 1: that people are going to hear those personal things about
Speaker 1: my life and put them in the music. And this
Speaker 1: in the past five years while I was making this record,
Speaker 1: unlike previous times in my life, there are just so
Speaker 1: many of these big, often quite difficult moments in my family.
Speaker 1: Our love I was when we had our first daughter
Speaker 1: in the kind of world seems new and everything's shiny
Speaker 1: and rose tinted and everything it's kind of it's utopian feeling.
Speaker 1: The last years while I was making this, there's been
Speaker 1: loads of happiness. I don't want to make it sound
Speaker 1: like it was all misery and difficulty, because it wasn't
Speaker 1: at all. But the big things that shaped like that
Speaker 1: kind of brought our family together. Unfortunately, a lot of
Speaker 1: them were difficult things, like my wife's family. There's a
Speaker 1: death of somebody with a heart attack not much older
Speaker 1: than me, and and then that catalyzed a divorce, and
Speaker 1: so her family was My wife and I've been together
Speaker 1: for twenty years. You saw our nieces living with us
Speaker 1: in this house, so I'm you know, I'm there as
Speaker 1: close as my family. There's no distinction really, and that
Speaker 1: just like Rocked the kind of foundations of all of us,
Speaker 1: and particularly ended up being I ended up myself and
Speaker 1: my wife ended up in the situation of having to
Speaker 1: support people that were even closer to these things than
Speaker 1: than we were.
Speaker 3: And I think the music helps.
Speaker 1: Some of the songs are like a you know, a letter,
Speaker 1: a tribute directly to the There's the song New Jade
Speaker 1: is like a tribute to the to my wife's sister
Speaker 1: who went to escape this toxic marriage that she'd been
Speaker 1: in for decades and was so strong and brave and
Speaker 1: resilient in doing that, and I wanted to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: pay tribute to her and capture that. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have been very, very strange had these things
Speaker 1: which like shaped my life not been on this record,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd be like looking back and thinking it
Speaker 1: doesn't represent what was happening in my life at that time.
Speaker 2: And some of the songs on the album are not
Speaker 2: just kind of like first person perspective your thoughts on
Speaker 2: those situations, but almost kind of imagine through the eyes
Speaker 2: of those people.
Speaker 3: Is that right? Yep, that's true that it.
Speaker 2: Comes from your natural empathy around the situations with your
Speaker 2: family members.
Speaker 1: That role of being supportive and comforting or empathizing or
Speaker 1: you know, and then also processing it myself. All of
Speaker 1: those things are kind of happening together, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's what the music allows me. And on all these
Speaker 1: difficult things in the record, I think it still sounds
Speaker 1: quite there's kind of melancholy elements in it, but it
Speaker 1: still sounds quite affirming and positive. It was about finding
Speaker 1: something to give comfort, to be some positive in some
Speaker 1: sense out of it, and the music does that for
Speaker 1: me as well.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a way of processing difficult things and
Speaker 1: making something constructive or even sometimes joyous out of it,
Speaker 1: you know, making those difficult things work in some way.
Speaker 2: Do you think music kind of plays almost like a
Speaker 2: sort of meditative role when something something big happens in
Speaker 2: your life, something you weren't expecting, whether that's the loss
Speaker 2: of somebody or whatever, it might be, big change. Some
Speaker 2: people kind of find sort this in like doing some exercise,
Speaker 2: like maybe going for a walk, like get some fresh air,
Speaker 2: whatever it might be. If you come to understand music,
Speaker 2: is it playing in almost this sort of like a
Speaker 2: therapeutic like meditative For sure, you poscess in your own
Speaker 2: thoughts something.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, for sure. And I mean another way, it.
Speaker 1: Just occurred to me, like people will rely on other
Speaker 1: people's music to process things, you know, when they're going
Speaker 1: through a difficult time. People have told me that about
Speaker 1: other music that I've made, or you know, I know
Speaker 1: other musicians who've or just friends who've relied on a
Speaker 1: record to help them with that. And but my impulse
Speaker 1: in that kind of situation is to make the music
Speaker 1: that feels like it'll do.
Speaker 3: That to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's some footsteps upstairs, Yeah, your kids, if I
Speaker 2: back from school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that time. It's three forty five. The tiny
Speaker 1: feet are running over the floors above us.
Speaker 2: How they spend the next few hours.
Speaker 1: So they're very different in ages. An eight year old
Speaker 1: and there's a three year old. The eight year old
Speaker 1: now just wants she's a real writer. She'll just spend
Speaker 1: her time writing and creating all these projects herself. She's
Speaker 1: really like invested in environmental action as well, which is
Speaker 1: I mean, is a thing for kids these days, right unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because we've left them in the scenario where that's relevant.
Speaker 1: So yeah, she's really focused in that way, which is
Speaker 1: remarkable to see.
Speaker 3: The three year old.
Speaker 1: It's just like a ball of fun and trouble and energy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they have very different moods modes that they're
Speaker 1: they're after school takes. Yeah, but they're both sociable kids,
Speaker 1: so that often there's like often it's those that sounded
Speaker 1: just like the two of them, But often it's like
Speaker 1: ten kids come plowing into the house after.
Speaker 2: Off of the classes coming back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is it feels so nice and it's really
Speaker 1: really nice to have that kind of a house where
Speaker 1: it's like the doors are open all the time, people
Speaker 1: are coming and going.
Speaker 3: It lives.
Speaker 1: This neighborhood we live in is kind of like a
Speaker 1: bit of a sesame street. Maybe it's not a British
Speaker 1: appropriate reference, but like definitely we get that. You know everybody,
Speaker 1: We know every You can't I can't walk out of
Speaker 1: the house without like saying hello to five different people,
Speaker 1: which is really nice.
Speaker 2: Before we talk a little bit more about suddenly, I
Speaker 2: guess I suppose we should wind back a little bit.
Speaker 2: We talked about our in that period we were to
Speaker 2: look back to sort of twenty fourteen twenty fifteen, and
Speaker 2: like the music that you'd made, that record took you
Speaker 2: all over the world. The biggest stages you ever played
Speaker 2: the biggest song that you've ever released, Like, coming off
Speaker 2: the back of that, what were your initial thoughts going
Speaker 2: into the process of starting to write new material. Did
Speaker 2: any extra thoughts, any extra baggage, any extra pressure come
Speaker 2: with any of that?
Speaker 3: It was all really affirming. You know.
Speaker 1: I kind of made Our Love as a I mean,
Speaker 1: Swim had seemed like a big step up for me,
Speaker 1: and I made Our Love as a kind of thank
Speaker 1: you and to share directly with the people who my
Speaker 1: music had kind of connected to. And it kind of
Speaker 1: lived up to that potential. You know, it can't do
Speaker 1: without you. When I was making it, I was already
Speaker 1: picture playing at Glastonbury or playing it wherever, and it
Speaker 1: had exactly that kind of life, which is so wonderful.
Speaker 1: I mean, when I'm so fortunate to get to play
Speaker 1: the shows that we get to play, and travel around
Speaker 1: and share that music, have my music mean something to people,
Speaker 1: that's such a fortunate thing that I don't I don't
Speaker 1: lose sight of or take for granted.
Speaker 3: So that's what that album was all about.
Speaker 1: But then I also realized, like, okay, you know, I always,
Speaker 1: to some degree think of myself as.
Speaker 3: Like musical weirdo or outsider.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm never going to make bona fide pop music,
Speaker 1: you know, really popular pop music. I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't just keep chasing that thing. I can't try and
Speaker 1: make another can't do it that you are like top,
Speaker 1: you know, take it up to another level every single time.
Speaker 1: That's not a sustainable, sensible thing to do, and that
Speaker 1: will be frustrating and drive me crazy. So instead it
Speaker 1: was like, well, you know, people have been very generous
Speaker 1: in the past with following my weird trajectory through different genres,
Speaker 1: different styles, music that's quite unusual or idiosyncratic, eccentric at times,
Speaker 1: So I don't need to be afraid of that, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's kind of the thinking that you
Speaker 1: can get into when things have gone well. You can think, okay,
Speaker 1: I'd better not take any risks because that's not what
Speaker 1: people want from me. They you know, that'll ruin everything.
Speaker 1: But I was like, no, I'm not sure that's true,
Speaker 1: and particularly like I feel like we live in a
Speaker 1: time when there's so much music everywhere that the music
Speaker 1: that actually connects with people and has a life is
Speaker 1: the music that stands out or is different or has
Speaker 1: presents like things from a slightly different angle or lens.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of like, I feel like I
Speaker 1: don't need to worry about those things, and I didn't
Speaker 1: really worry about it. Instead, it kind of gave me
Speaker 1: a kind of impetus to highlight those idiosyncrasies and eccentricities
Speaker 1: in the music, which I think you hear in the
Speaker 1: kind of way that the songs will take drastic left turns,
Speaker 1: it will be a genre shift halfway through a song,
Speaker 1: or the bottom feel like the floor dropped out from
Speaker 1: underneath you in a different You'll be in a different
Speaker 1: world all of a sudden, And that felt exciting and
Speaker 1: different to me. That's not been something that's really been
Speaker 1: on my pre records, and just from a kind of
Speaker 1: producer's self, in my very particular perspective, I always want
Speaker 1: to feel like I'm doing something different. I don't want
Speaker 1: to feel like I'm treading over the same territory.
Speaker 2: The space was sat in now. I mean it's not
Speaker 2: a big space. There's a lot of stuff in here.
Speaker 2: So like what I'm imagining is that actual you're working
Speaker 2: on music is a fairly kind of solitary experience. So
Speaker 2: who are the people who are your sounding boards through
Speaker 2: the process of creating suddenly, because like you say, you
Speaker 2: have tried a few different things, so presumably it's various stages.
Speaker 2: You wanted to say to people, I've done something a
Speaker 2: bit different here. What do you think of this? This
Speaker 2: is not my you know, I've not done this before,
Speaker 2: or you wanted just to seek those little bits of
Speaker 2: feedback or reassurance or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's my wife and Kieran a fortet and you
Speaker 1: know I make so much music, and I make so
Speaker 1: I made nine hundred and something draft ideas for this album,
Speaker 1: which is just a crazy stupid I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: it's almost like somebody I should be referred to, you know, psychotherapist.
Speaker 1: So when you hear that number. But I make that
Speaker 1: music because I enjoy making it, and I make it
Speaker 1: without any pressure or critical thinking.
Speaker 3: About is this good? Is as bad? Is it fit
Speaker 3: on the record? Is it not?
Speaker 1: I just make it, tinkering around the same way that
Speaker 1: I've always done since I was a teenager. It's just
Speaker 1: a part of my life that I enjoy like I
Speaker 1: can't imagine being without. In that respect, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: to me that ninety nine percent. I mean, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like the vast majority of this stuff will never see
Speaker 1: the light of day. But then there are definitely there
Speaker 1: are definitely some that I'm the vast majority that I
Speaker 1: make are like Okay, that doesn't add anything to anything.
Speaker 3: It's just like it was fun to do. But nobody
Speaker 3: ever needs to hear that. Fine.
Speaker 1: Then there's a bunch that I like, feel pretty confident about,
Speaker 1: and then there's ones that I there's also ones that
Speaker 1: I like, you say, they are something different, there's something unusual,
Speaker 1: they are more of a risk or more of something.
Speaker 1: And having my wife and Kieran hear those and then
Speaker 1: they're both brutally honest with me, you know, they'll they'll
Speaker 1: be that's important. That's really important for me because I'm
Speaker 1: so close to it. I need that perspective. And there
Speaker 1: are times when I'm super excited about something and they'll
Speaker 1: just be like, no, sorry.
Speaker 2: This is this isn't this isn't particularly, But when it
Speaker 2: comes to your wife, then is.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh totally.
Speaker 1: She's she can be exactly as she should be. You know,
Speaker 1: it means she cares about what I'm doing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not letting things just slide. But it can be
Speaker 1: difficult to hear for sure.
Speaker 2: What about we've already mentioned your two daughters. Do they
Speaker 2: take an interest in what you do? Do they come
Speaker 2: down to the studio listen to the music because you're
Speaker 2: making it? If they kind of particularly older daughter perhaps
Speaker 2: like she's been kind of bitten by like the music bug.
Speaker 1: So the three year old comes and sits in that
Speaker 1: chair that you're in right now and ask me to
Speaker 1: swivel her around. It's like a spinning chair would be
Speaker 1: quite fun.
Speaker 3: That's her thing.
Speaker 1: The eight year old does I just want to hear
Speaker 1: it now, and does kind of understand the whole idea,
Speaker 1: you know, like gets that I'm going to release an
Speaker 1: album and then I'm going to go on tour and
Speaker 1: I'm going to play at festivals, and she's probably gonna
Speaker 1: come and see some shows and et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and that you know that it came out of me
Speaker 1: being really into music as a kid and playing the
Speaker 1: piano lots and this.
Speaker 3: Gradually she kind of gets the whole picture to.
Speaker 1: Some degree, well just surprisingly complete degree, probably because she's
Speaker 1: so so commonplace in her life. There was a great
Speaker 1: moment I can't remember the exact wording. But there was
Speaker 1: a time when she was like describing you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what you know people end up with like a normal
Speaker 1: job like musician or et cetera. We were like, hang
Speaker 1: on a minute, Like the musician isn't really a normal
Speaker 1: I mean it's fortunately there's lots of people to do it,
Speaker 1: but it's not like what people think of as a
Speaker 1: normal job. But she's so inside that world where obviously
Speaker 1: I have lots of friends that are musicians as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she really wanted to hear this album and gave it
Speaker 1: a good, good listen and thought and she said to
Speaker 1: me very seriously, like, Dad, I think Home is going
Speaker 1: to be the most popular thing you've ever done.
Speaker 3: Which is I was like, great that come from yeah,
Speaker 3: having great approval.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she she plays piano. She comes down here
Speaker 1: and plays these drums. Sometimes. One thing I'm cautious about,
Speaker 1: and it's not where I come from at all, the
Speaker 1: like kind of having music force, Like I love music,
Speaker 1: so you've got to love music.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it's everywhere, so if they want it,
Speaker 1: they it's available to them. But I never had that
Speaker 1: and I don't want that to be the way they
Speaker 1: get into it.
Speaker 2: It's like this little pushy dad socker coach thing, isn't
Speaker 2: it just being like you will do this thing, like yeah,
Speaker 2: you kind of am good to maybe resist that.
Speaker 3: Totally back to whatever they get to do.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, I mean we talked a bit about some
Speaker 2: of the loss unfortunately that went into the making of
Speaker 2: this album. But obviously your second daughter was born during
Speaker 2: the making of this record as well, I'll say, and
Speaker 2: from what I've read, that was quite an eventful experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was another sudden development in a different
Speaker 1: kind of way. She was born on the Caledonian Road,
Speaker 1: I mean literally onto the onto the road we were.
Speaker 1: We don't have a car, so we were headed towards
Speaker 1: hospital in Houston, uh and my wife was in labor
Speaker 1: and it was like we'd made a plan that to
Speaker 1: have a dula like this woman who's a midwife at
Speaker 1: a hospital, but then she was going to come and
Speaker 1: assist us, but also drive us to the hospital. That
Speaker 1: was a key part of the plan. And because like
Speaker 1: otherwise you're in a taxi and that's even crazier. So
Speaker 1: and then I was like texting her during the day
Speaker 1: being like I think, you know, it's like things are
Speaker 1: picking up here, you know, when she was at work
Speaker 1: at the at a hospital, a different hospital, when do
Speaker 1: you think you can get here? And by the time
Speaker 1: she did get here after work, because it can take
Speaker 1: a long time. By the time she got here, she looked,
Speaker 1: took one look at my wife and like just her
Speaker 1: face like fell and she was like, We've got to
Speaker 1: get in the car right now. That was a crazy scene.
Speaker 1: You know, for one thing, just as a woman in
Speaker 1: full labor getting into a car is not an easy
Speaker 1: feat or a comfortable thing at all. Then you know,
Speaker 1: like driving, getting stuck in traffic. You know, it's London,
Speaker 1: you can get stuck in it's a spot because some
Speaker 1: lorries pulling out or whatever. And by the time we
Speaker 1: got we were we were close. We almost made it
Speaker 1: for the record. But then at some point on the
Speaker 1: Caledonian Road, my wife was just like, this is happening
Speaker 1: right now, pull over the car and the woman, the midwife,
Speaker 1: ran around, opened the door. The baby was born. Our
Speaker 1: daughter was born. Like that second, you know, there was
Speaker 1: no waiting around. And then thirty seconds later we were
Speaker 1: all laughing and crying sitting there. There were people, you know,
Speaker 1: just people all around and nobody really noticed that this
Speaker 1: was happening. It's a weird one of those things where
Speaker 1: people are you're in an urban environment, but people are
Speaker 1: so focused on their own thing they it's crazy, really
Speaker 1: crazy moment.
Speaker 2: I suppose one of the nice things about that, as
Speaker 2: no doubt stress but as it was at points a
Speaker 2: lot of people, most people wouldn't really get the opportunity
Speaker 2: to go back to the place where they were born.
Speaker 2: Yet your daughter's going to have a life where you
Speaker 2: can go back to the exact spot.
Speaker 1: Which, yeah, it's pretty cool actually, Like we do go
Speaker 1: past there on the bus or in a taxi or
Speaker 1: whatever and say, hey, live that's where you were born.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, that's that is an interesting and it'll
Speaker 1: it's the same for us. You know, that spot will
Speaker 1: never be the same as well. Again we've we lived
Speaker 1: on Caledonian Road actually for several years, so it seems
Speaker 1: like an appropriate place for it, I mean, aside from
Speaker 1: a hospital, which would have been another appropriate place for
Speaker 1: it to happen.
Speaker 2: Presumably the title suddenly is reference to these things that
Speaker 2: have come along in life without any warning.
Speaker 3: That is what it refers to.
Speaker 1: But I have a weird kind of backwards way of
Speaker 1: arriving at it and the meaning behind it, because it
Speaker 1: was this daughter that was born in a car or
Speaker 1: on the road, that had just added this word to
Speaker 1: her vocabulary. She was about to turn three, and everything
Speaker 1: was suddenly this suddenly and actually actually those were two
Speaker 1: words at the time, Actually this, suddenly that. And I
Speaker 1: was desperate to find a title, you know, this is
Speaker 1: I hate finding album titles, song titles. And it was
Speaker 1: like past the deadline of when the record, the record's done,
Speaker 1: everything's done, and I don't have a very good picture
Speaker 1: or perspective necessarily on exactly what it was all about,
Speaker 1: because it's such a blur trying to get it all
Speaker 1: finished and stuff. And my wife spotted her saying this
Speaker 1: word over and over again, said what about that suddenly?
Speaker 1: And I thought of it, and I think my wife
Speaker 1: thought of it in respect in reference to the kind
Speaker 1: of sudden musical changes in the music, because there's quite
Speaker 1: a lot of those, you know, there's those moments.
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, yeah, maybe that's sense.
Speaker 1: And then I would play the album to friends of
Speaker 1: mine and they would use the words suddenly to describe
Speaker 1: the music, and I was like, Okay, maybe it makes sense.
Speaker 1: And then it was when I was press person that
Speaker 1: was writing up the press for release, was like, tell
Speaker 1: me something about like the circumstance of making this album,
Speaker 1: what your life has been like, all that stuff. I
Speaker 1: started writing it all out and realized, like, this is
Speaker 1: how I was. I was really blind to that fact
Speaker 1: that the shape of my life is being changed by
Speaker 1: these sudden things. And that's what all these songs are about.
Speaker 1: They're all about these things. So it's funny how appropriate
Speaker 1: it is given that I know it has come up
Speaker 1: with by a toddler or yeah, it's just it's weird
Speaker 1: the way it seems so inevitable now, like it couldn't
Speaker 1: have been called anything else. But and yet I didn't
Speaker 1: have the forethought or the perspective to be able to
Speaker 1: see that myself at the time.
Speaker 2: Continuing on the sort of theme of family, there's a
Speaker 2: sample of your mother on the album, isn't there? Can
Speaker 2: you tell me about that? Where did that come from?
Speaker 1: So that came from My parents are English and they
Speaker 1: moved over to Canada. My dad's in academics. We got
Speaker 1: a job at university over there, and before I was
Speaker 1: born and my mom's parents were still here, so she
Speaker 1: would make these tapes, you know, cassette tapes. This was
Speaker 1: the late seventies, early eighties, that she would record of
Speaker 1: us doing stuff. You know, I don't know, her reading
Speaker 1: to us, my older sister's reading something they had written
Speaker 1: at school, or playing something that they learned on the piano,
Speaker 1: or et cetera, et cetera, that kind of stuff, or
Speaker 1: even just her talking describing what we'd been doing as
Speaker 1: a family, like a kind of letter, but an audio letter.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole bunch of these tapes that spend
Speaker 1: a probably a decade. But then probably things got too
Speaker 1: busy or you know, I don't know, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: We weren't little kids anymore, so it didn't make sense
Speaker 1: to do these that she would send back to her parents,
Speaker 1: and I kind of knew they existed, but then we
Speaker 1: got them back when my grandparents passed away, you know, inevitably,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I can nobody else has
Speaker 1: a tape recorder, tape deck I can record.
Speaker 3: We should have these, you.
Speaker 2: Know, this is like a great piece of family history. Yeah,
Speaker 2: lovely thing to be able to keepe. Absolutely, and it's you.
Speaker 1: Know, there was unlike my daughter's life where every moment
Speaker 1: is documented and record in some way. There's not that
Speaker 1: much of my childhood recorded in sound or video. I
Speaker 1: digitized all this scented around, but also just like listen
Speaker 1: to it because it was fascinating to hear this, the
Speaker 1: kind of reality of what life sounded like then versus
Speaker 1: our kind of remembered remembrances of our childhood. And then
Speaker 1: it occurred to me, you know this album, this is
Speaker 1: what the themes about family and were so en mashed
Speaker 1: in the music that I thought there should be some
Speaker 1: part of this on here. And I found this part
Speaker 1: of my mom singing she's saying to my sister, who's
Speaker 1: this is before I was born, when my sister was
Speaker 1: like a two year toddler, two year old, and I
Speaker 1: just found a spot to find it to place it
Speaker 1: on the album.
Speaker 2: It just seems so apt given all the stuff that
Speaker 2: we've talked about that that's included on there. You mentioned
Speaker 2: it earlier earlier on about your daughter's passion for sustainability,
Speaker 2: for environmental issues, and the fact that you know, like
Speaker 2: you say, we're the younger generations, people younger than yourself
Speaker 2: and myself, they're having to be incredibly active in that respect.
Speaker 2: Because you know of our generation's lack of action. Do
Speaker 2: you think a lot about the issue of sustainability and
Speaker 2: how does that kind of work in parallel to you
Speaker 2: just you your job and your lifestyle and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean it is something that I think
Speaker 1: about a lot, and actually so i've and it's something
Speaker 1: that comes up in discussions with musician friends of mine
Speaker 1: all the time. There's a lot of travel and flying around,
Speaker 1: and festivals have a huge footprint and et cetera, and
Speaker 1: there's I feel like there really is a great desire
Speaker 1: amongst musicians and in the music industry to be sustainable,
Speaker 1: be better, but people are kind of like paralyzed by
Speaker 1: not knowing what to do. All of us are kind
Speaker 1: of none of us are outside of this problem, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's very hard to feel like you can make
Speaker 1: a statement when you're compromised yourself. And that's definitely a
Speaker 1: way that I feel. I feel like, how can I
Speaker 1: say we should do this when people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: get on another plane to another festival. So but this time,
Speaker 1: I've I mean, it's critical to the degree where we
Speaker 1: have to put that aside and act anyway. So there
Speaker 1: are a number of things that I've done for this
Speaker 1: record and the tour. We've been offsetting our travels for
Speaker 1: a decade now, the tour, but this time we're going
Speaker 1: to We got Julie's Bicycle is a really good nonprofit
Speaker 1: that does kind of audits and stuff for businesses, I
Speaker 1: think in general, but maybe particularly creative industries and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they did discussed with us the best things we
Speaker 1: can do regarding the tour aside, you know, offsetting obviously
Speaker 1: we're going to offset the whole tour and everything, but
Speaker 1: minimizing the footprint of various things, and then also within
Speaker 1: to do with the production of the record, manufacturing the
Speaker 1: physical copies in such a way that it has the
Speaker 1: least impact.
Speaker 3: The CD comes.
Speaker 1: In entirely cardboard packaging using recycled paper and FSC certified materials,
Speaker 1: which is something that the labels that I'm working with
Speaker 1: already do. Offsetting the entire footprint of the production of
Speaker 1: the music, and also of the streaming.
Speaker 3: There's a good book that's just actually.
Speaker 1: Been released that I haven't had an advanced copy of
Speaker 1: about the footprint of streaming and how it's significant. It's
Speaker 1: not like, oh now there's now people listen to it
Speaker 1: in the ether, and that doesn't create any problem. So
Speaker 1: it's something to be aware of, and I'm going to continue,
Speaker 1: as the album's listen to, to continue offsetting that. It's
Speaker 1: something I think about all the time. I think, and
Speaker 1: I hope we will see I mean, but it's still
Speaker 1: super problematic. Like I say, I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: have a good answer or a complete answer in any way.
Speaker 3: Everywhere I turn.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to musicians that are thinking about this and
Speaker 1: trying to do things that is different from five years ago.
Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit about how you feel that
Speaker 2: that's changed the last few years.
Speaker 1: There's a change in that for sure. That's definitely the
Speaker 1: sense I get. I would say the thing that really
Speaker 1: changed it for me and gave me the sense of
Speaker 1: that I needed to make that decision personally and stop
Speaker 1: worrying about being a hypocrite when we're all to some
Speaker 1: degrees hypocrites. But I realized that the kind of touring
Speaker 1: footprint is larger than I mean, we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: currently that's what we do. We calculate every aspect of
Speaker 1: it so that we can offset it. So I'm acutely
Speaker 1: aware of exactly the consequences of this is an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: I can say this actually with Julie's bicycle. We did
Speaker 1: an audit of our UK tour and I was like,
Speaker 1: it's the UK trains everywhere. We can just travel on trains.
Speaker 1: The lighting and stuff will have to go in a truck,
Speaker 1: but we can go in a train and then stay
Speaker 1: in hotels and instead of going into tour bus. And
Speaker 1: we did the worked out the numbers for it, and
Speaker 1: actually the cost of even we share hotel rooms, two
Speaker 1: of us to hotel rooms, so is to kind of
Speaker 1: minimize our impact. But even so with like four hotel
Speaker 1: rooms or whatever it would be a night, their footprint.
Speaker 1: You know, think about what you do in a hotel room.
Speaker 1: You could turn the heat up and like all the
Speaker 1: laundry gets washed every day and et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, you're not thinking in the same way
Speaker 1: that you are at home, or yeah, it's somebody else's
Speaker 1: problem kind of thing. And we realized surprisingly because on
Speaker 1: a tour bus we don't get hotel rooms. We just
Speaker 1: stay in the tour bus and we use the shower
Speaker 1: in the venue, and we're you know, the footprint of
Speaker 1: those two modes of doing the UK tour were virtually identical,
Speaker 1: which was totally a surprise to me. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a big thing for me, is that we must
Speaker 1: be like evidence led, because I don't want it to
Speaker 1: appear like I'm doing this to be worthier, holier than
Speaker 1: now this is about. This is a situation where the
Speaker 1: important thing is that we are minimizing some physical thing,
Speaker 1: which is the amount of greenhouse gases emitted, and that
Speaker 1: that's we need to be evidence led in doing that.
Speaker 1: One of the things that really like turned up the
Speaker 1: metaphorical temperature to use an unfortunately relevant metaphor is this
Speaker 1: book called The Uninhabitable Earth by Yeah so David wall
Speaker 1: as wells Yeah, which is just devastating. I mean, like
Speaker 1: it's a crushing book to read. And for those listening
Speaker 1: you haven't read it. It's like, you know, it's very sober.
Speaker 1: And he wasn't even kind of an evangelical environmental activist.
Speaker 1: He came to this quite recently, and he just goes
Speaker 1: through and assembles all the kind of you know, very
Speaker 1: non contentious mainstream evidence about if the temperature global temperature
Speaker 1: raises two degrees in the next forty years, these are
Speaker 1: the things that will happen, and then you know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't stop in another forty years, that'll gone up another
Speaker 1: degree or two. And he goes through all the scenarios
Speaker 1: and it's just mind boggling. I mean, it's so devastating,
Speaker 1: you know, like agricultural decline, like massive sea level And
Speaker 1: it also dispels the myth that this is a problem
Speaker 1: that's happening somewhere else. I think that's the big thing too,
Speaker 1: is that people are like, ah, yeah, this is happening
Speaker 1: to like somebody I don't know on the other side
Speaker 1: of the world wherevers you read this book and you
Speaker 1: realize that is not the case at all.
Speaker 2: You can't not read it and not feel compelled to
Speaker 2: take personal action. I think, like the first thirty five pages,
Speaker 2: the introduction as it were, also does it quite a
Speaker 2: thin interesting job of explaining how the climate crisis hasn't
Speaker 2: been addressed to the degree that it needs to be
Speaker 2: so far because of the fact that it feels so
Speaker 2: enormous that people can't basically get their head around it.
Speaker 2: Those conversations that you've had with people behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: Does it feel like now there's like a kind of
Speaker 2: swell of conversation happening, and do you think people will
Speaker 2: be in I used to get together and work a
Speaker 2: path through it. You kind of see it, you feel
Speaker 2: quite positive about that.
Speaker 1: There's times that I feel positive and there's times I
Speaker 1: feel defeated and by the whole thing. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there will see. You know, I have friends in the
Speaker 1: music industry who are working on doing really big projects
Speaker 1: and things that will hopefully come to fruition in the
Speaker 1: next few years, like raising huge amounts of money because
Speaker 1: we need, like it's all very well to stop DJ
Speaker 1: x Y and Z taking private jets that contributes, there's
Speaker 1: no question, but we need like big systemic changes in
Speaker 1: our society. We you know, inevidently, like we definitely do
Speaker 1: need to see those things happen. And so it's good
Speaker 1: to see people who have a lot, you know, the
Speaker 1: music industry when united can like mobilize in a really
Speaker 1: big way. And I'm starting to see it's all very
Speaker 1: well us off setting our tours and whatever. Sure, but
Speaker 1: there needs to be people with bigger, bolder ideas, and
Speaker 1: I'm starting to see those things happen, and hopefully that's
Speaker 1: something that you can like, you know, sign on to
Speaker 1: and join join up with and contribute to in some way.
Speaker 1: But in the last two years even there's being a
Speaker 1: real change in mentality about about the scale of the
Speaker 1: problem and about how crucial it is that we address
Speaker 1: it now.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to know. We talked a bit about suddenly
Speaker 2: the record. We've talked about your kind of passions and
Speaker 2: your interests and your family and everything else. We touched
Speaker 2: upon where we're talking about you taking the kit down
Speaker 2: to Oxfam and the records down to Oxfam. That almost
Speaker 2: sort of passing of your experience. You're passing of your knowledge.
Speaker 2: You know, you've been making music for a long time.
Speaker 2: You're clearly still kind of learning yourself every day with
Speaker 2: your with your art, your technique and everything else. But
Speaker 2: what about passing on your skills? Do you feel a
Speaker 2: sort of duty to other producers you meet young producers,
Speaker 2: other people that are in the kind of industry so
Speaker 2: to speak, that you just sort of want to be like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I've spent a long time learning about all this stuff,
Speaker 2: Like I can help you by giving you some knowledge
Speaker 2: or some well quite literally give you some equipment in
Speaker 2: some cases. Yeah, yeah, how important is that to you?
Speaker 1: Very important? And it's really relevant right now. Actually, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's kind of reflective of the fact that Kieran was
Speaker 1: that person for me. He helped me get my music
Speaker 1: signed in the first place, and he's always been that
Speaker 1: kind of sounding board and feedback. And then I look
Speaker 1: around in his life and he does that for so
Speaker 1: many people that people in our little world of electronic
Speaker 1: music aren't aware of the number of people that are
Speaker 1: asking Kieran.
Speaker 3: Hey, would you mind listening to this and tell me
Speaker 3: what you think? And et cetera, et.
Speaker 1: Cetera, people starting out, people very well established. And I've
Speaker 1: realized like I've been a beneficiary of that, and not
Speaker 1: just from Kieren, but I've had lots of good kind
Speaker 1: of mentoring in the music world about anything music, but
Speaker 1: also like the practical things of how to do this
Speaker 1: and that, and so I do.
Speaker 3: There are like a bunch of.
Speaker 1: People that I do that same thing for, and I
Speaker 1: feel very you know, happy to be able to be
Speaker 1: that they ask me and are interested in my opinion.
Speaker 1: But on another level, this is something that is in
Speaker 1: the is kind of in the works, are bubbling along
Speaker 1: and hopefully will be manifested sometimes soon, but it's very
Speaker 1: somewhat hypothetical at this point. But I just DJ'ed at
Speaker 1: Cosmic Slop, which is this club that's run out of
Speaker 1: a charity called MAP in Leeds and it's this friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Cosmic to Tom Smith runs this incredible charity
Speaker 1: that deals is set up to teach creative skills to children,
Speaker 1: kids teenagers who are excluded from mainstream education. And he's
Speaker 1: been running this for ten years incredibly, and it's all
Speaker 1: and he's also like an incredible high fi sound system
Speaker 1: not so, He's built like this unbelievable club with the
Speaker 1: greatest possible sound you can imagine, for like one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty two hundred people and never announces who's playing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just him and the other person who runs it,
Speaker 1: or sometimes it's you know me or Sam floating points,
Speaker 1: Kieran whoever. Various people have done it, and that funds
Speaker 1: the whole model for this program, which is amazing. He's
Speaker 1: managed to buy this building that was a bigger fundraising
Speaker 1: raising drive, but he's built bought this huge building that
Speaker 1: situated in and that is so inspiring to me. And
Speaker 1: so I'm kind of interested to see if there are
Speaker 1: ways that I can be more involved in things like that,
Speaker 1: or you know, I guess I've come to realize that
Speaker 1: just fundraising in general.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I've done a couple.
Speaker 1: Of gigs for Choose Love, Help Refugees and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: This is a platform that I feel very fortunate to have.
Speaker 1: And I hope this doesn't come across as like preachy,
Speaker 1: fucking holier than now, But it's just I've got to
Speaker 1: the place I always wanted to get to, and now
Speaker 1: it's time to like turn around and see who I
Speaker 1: can use this platform to help.
Speaker 2: Anyway. Good Night,