Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Inside the Studio on iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: My name's Jordan runt Dog. But enough about me, let
Speaker 1: me tell you about my guest. He's one half of
Speaker 1: a creative partnership that stretches back nearly forty years. Together,
Speaker 1: they're one of the most unique and unpredictable voices in
Speaker 1: alternative rock, spanning genres. With air tight harmonies and avant
Speaker 1: garde humor, they're sort of like gen X's answer to
Speaker 1: the Bonzo Dog DoD band tracks like Particle Man and
Speaker 1: Istanbul not constantinople first during them attention from MTV in
Speaker 1: the early nineties, but these days you never quite know
Speaker 1: when they'll pop up. In addition to sixteen studio albums,
Speaker 1: they're creative endeavors have included jingles for toys and themes
Speaker 1: for Beloved Sitcom's animated appearances on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network,
Speaker 1: and contributions to the soundtrack for the Broadway productions SpongeBob
Speaker 1: square Pants the Musical. Now, they're gearing up to release
Speaker 1: their latest record on November twelve, titled Book. Yes. The
Speaker 1: records titled Book It's informed by the hellish realities of
Speaker 1: the last two years with their anxieties, often channeled for
Speaker 1: comedic effect. Yes, we laugh to keep from crying. The
Speaker 1: album Book is being released alongside a book called Book.
Speaker 1: The one four page hardcover volume features original work by
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Street photographer Brian Carlson, alongside song lyrics said among
Speaker 1: typographical illustrations by graphic designer Paul Sair. Today we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about the book Book, the album book, the upcoming
Speaker 1: toward to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their breakthrough album Flood,
Speaker 1: and also we're gonna talk a lot about the Beatles.
Speaker 1: So buckle up. It's my pleasure to welcome the mighty
Speaker 1: John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy our conversation. Well, first things first, you have a
Speaker 1: new album coming out called Book, which is fittingly accompanied
Speaker 1: by a book which features text, design, lyrics from the
Speaker 1: songs and Brian Carlson Street photography. How did this collection
Speaker 1: begin for you? Did you create the book and did
Speaker 1: that inform them music or is the music the impetus
Speaker 1: for the book? Well, like so many things that They
Speaker 1: Might Be Giants, there was absolutely no master plan. We
Speaker 1: kind of backed into it um in an odd way.
Speaker 1: You know, we've made a lot of albums and I
Speaker 1: think we like the album format and uh just you know,
Speaker 1: making sets of songs. It's an interesting way to present
Speaker 1: your work, and I think it's a very music centric
Speaker 1: way of of presenting your work, and in a funny way,
Speaker 1: by making this big package, in this big book, we're
Speaker 1: the the immediate side effect is it's just bringing a
Speaker 1: lot more attention to the idea of making an album
Speaker 1: project um and so in the same way that All
Speaker 1: Things Must Pass or you know, Sign of the Times
Speaker 1: or any any album from your from your childhood if
Speaker 1: you're crazy old like me, reminds you of like that
Speaker 1: kind of music centric listening experience. The whole idea of
Speaker 1: book is to uh kind of pull you into the
Speaker 1: album deeper and uh, you know, finding the balance of
Speaker 1: visual elements that would work in a book and compliment
Speaker 1: the music was a little bit tricky, but fortunately we've
Speaker 1: been We've been collaborating with this really amazing graphic designer,
Speaker 1: Paul Sair for the last fiften or fifteen years, and
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's actually a kind of a big
Speaker 1: wheel in the world of graphic design, and he his
Speaker 1: publisher had and he and Paul had talked about this
Speaker 1: idea of doing or they might be Giant's book. And
Speaker 1: I think the first thing that most people think of
Speaker 1: when they hear about like rock books is like, oh,
Speaker 1: it'll be like a scrap book. It will be like
Speaker 1: like a little strolled down of memory lane. And I
Speaker 1: think that's exactly what most people assume whatever book we
Speaker 1: did would be, because that's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: bends that have been around for a long time do. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit more unexpected, but I think
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's it's much more interesting and it's
Speaker 1: a The process was a bunch more interesting for us.
Speaker 1: I mean working with Brian and working with Paul. Paul
Speaker 1: the Paul created all these sort of poetry concrete or
Speaker 1: concrete poetry lyric images while he was typing on IBM
Speaker 1: selectric typewriter by hand, and then created all these wild
Speaker 1: designs on on on paper And it's very hard to describe,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of easy to understand if you actually
Speaker 1: see it. But um, it's it's it was a really
Speaker 1: fun project. Um. I guess the truth is is like
Speaker 1: a question we do get asked a lot is like
Speaker 1: how do you keep going? And I think the true
Speaker 1: answer is we keep going because we actually are going.
Speaker 1: We're not just doing the same stuff over and over again.
Speaker 1: I mean just the book just as an object is
Speaker 1: absolutely gorgeous. I mean just the fabric cover and sort
Speaker 1: of the embossed type that. I mean, it's so cool.
Speaker 1: And I mean you've been working with Paul, I mean
Speaker 1: back since join us with the with the pink with
Speaker 1: the pink cardboard. Um yeah yeah, monster truck hurse, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that Paul has been you know, Paul is really a
Speaker 1: kindred spirit. I feel extremely lucky that we found him.
Speaker 1: I mean, the truth of the matter is like I've
Speaker 1: I've started in graphic design, uh when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of my fallback, you know, day
Speaker 1: job in New York when I when we first started
Speaker 1: the band, I was working in publishing houses and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's sort of like a graphic
Speaker 1: sensibility that they might be giants. That's kind of consistent.
Speaker 1: But I've collaborated with a lot of designers over the years,
Speaker 1: and I feel like in a way, um, I kind
Speaker 1: of burnt out designers working with them, you know, like,
Speaker 1: well I'll be with you know, a designer for a
Speaker 1: couple of years, and at a certain point they're just like, man,
Speaker 1: this is like more than I can handle. Like it's
Speaker 1: just because a lot of times to do stuff with
Speaker 1: the band, it's just requires a level of time that
Speaker 1: is uh, it's much. It's it's it's a little more
Speaker 1: intense than doing, uh than doing like a regular graphic job,
Speaker 1: which can you know, it's usually done in a couple
Speaker 1: of days, Like I think, I I really ask a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Fortunately, the thing about Paul is that
Speaker 1: he just has boundless energy and and doesn't mind. He's
Speaker 1: unafraid of doing things that take extraordinary amounts of time.
Speaker 1: I mean it really shows in this bookment. What was
Speaker 1: the process, Like I'm actually choosing the images to juxtapose
Speaker 1: with the lyrics. I mean there was some great I
Speaker 1: mean the one I want to give too much away,
Speaker 1: but the one with the with the skeletons, I really
Speaker 1: enjoy that. That is an amazing photograph. Well, I mean, Brian,
Speaker 1: it has done the time that it takes to be
Speaker 1: a successful street photographer. I mean the times I've talked
Speaker 1: to him, I've I've never been in face to face,
Speaker 1: but I FaceTime to him a few times, and inevitably
Speaker 1: he's outside, he's got a camera, you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: like hitting the streets. He's always uh, preparing himself to
Speaker 1: find out what photographs are out there. I think all
Speaker 1: any image in the book probably represents hours, if not days,
Speaker 1: of waiting for a photograph to happen. Because when you
Speaker 1: see the book, there is this thing about it where
Speaker 1: it's like a lot of times it's very much a
Speaker 1: moment and um, and you can't just you can't just
Speaker 1: decide you're gonna you know, those moments are gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So it's it's an interesting challenge for him. Um. He
Speaker 1: was very generous with the photographs that he had taken
Speaker 1: in recent years. I mean, this is all we started,
Speaker 1: really embarked in the book right as right before Lockdown happened.
Speaker 1: So we have we so we had something to pour
Speaker 1: our energies into once we were in lockdown. Um and Uh,
Speaker 1: it was really mostly about finding the images that combined
Speaker 1: with the song lyrics would kind of have a multiplier effect,
Speaker 1: like something that would pull something out of the lyric
Speaker 1: and amplify. Um. But yeah, the image he has endless
Speaker 1: images that are very very mysterious and and kind of enigmatic.
Speaker 1: The the thing about making books in the modern world
Speaker 1: now is, um, some of the photographs, I mean, he's, he's,
Speaker 1: he doesn't do that many photographs that are really just portraits.
Speaker 1: But there's this problem in the twenty one century with
Speaker 1: permissions and street photography being published in a book, is
Speaker 1: that you still have rights issues. And that was something
Speaker 1: that Paul was kind of tuned into, something that I
Speaker 1: was not expecting or thinking about, and we were we
Speaker 1: were kind of we kind of put together a first
Speaker 1: draft of images, and there was a clutch of really
Speaker 1: powerful photographs that just were too uh too risky because
Speaker 1: you could get you can get sued for defamation, which
Speaker 1: is something that I never even considered. Um, if you
Speaker 1: if you have a gallery show and are putting up
Speaker 1: photographs of people street photography and show people's faces, that's
Speaker 1: totally protected artistic expression. But the actual publishing of a
Speaker 1: book with somebody's face in it is not unless they're
Speaker 1: a public figure. And none of these people are public figures.
Speaker 1: So there are a couple of amnages that we kind
Speaker 1: of shied away from, but that they were few and
Speaker 1: far between, and we actually got the sort of verbal
Speaker 1: permission from a few people that are in the photographs
Speaker 1: that Brian knew, just to give them the heads up
Speaker 1: that the book was coming, and they were fine with
Speaker 1: it because they're just they're young people are just doing
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. I mean, I hadn't thought of this until
Speaker 1: you said it. But there is a spontaneity to the book.
Speaker 1: I mean, you you hear of found poetry, these photos
Speaker 1: are found moments, and even with the with the IBM
Speaker 1: S electric, there's something very spontaneous about, you know, not
Speaker 1: getting all the types set exactly, you know, fitting in
Speaker 1: with a publisher. But it's it's an it's an act
Speaker 1: done in the moment, and I really came through in
Speaker 1: the book. Yeah, I mean, it's it was you know,
Speaker 1: we made a bunch of very specific decisions. I think
Speaker 1: we we were nervous about doing something that might appear messy,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we just made some choices and
Speaker 1: kind of stuck to those and I think the book
Speaker 1: is better for that. It's a it turned out really good.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it. I mean, getting back to the
Speaker 1: album you mentioned earlier about having fun with sort of
Speaker 1: enjoying the the you know, the act of listening to
Speaker 1: an album as a physical thing. I mean, it's funny
Speaker 1: thinking back to earlier in your career when you had
Speaker 1: the dial a song line, which really kind of seems
Speaker 1: to almost predict streaming services. It was so ahead of
Speaker 1: its time. And now you released your new album on
Speaker 1: eight track, which I believe sold out, you know, and
Speaker 1: vinyl and cassette, Like, yeah, what, what does tell me
Speaker 1: more about sort of the motivation behind releasing uh, your
Speaker 1: new work on these formats that you know? I mean,
Speaker 1: I I listen to most of my music on a
Speaker 1: record player, so I totally get it, but I want
Speaker 1: to hear more about your well, you know, I us
Speaker 1: because we were putting the album out as a book,
Speaker 1: but it's also on all other typical formats as well. Um,
Speaker 1: we just thought people were sort of wondering if it
Speaker 1: was only going to be, you know, sold as a
Speaker 1: book with a download, or if it was going to
Speaker 1: actually be everywhere else, and uh, we just kind of
Speaker 1: went format crazy. We we we uh decided we were
Speaker 1: going to make except, which was like the first time
Speaker 1: we've made a caucet in a really long time. And
Speaker 1: as soon as we put that on sale, it's so
Speaker 1: like crazy, and it was like, really, that's wild, Like
Speaker 1: there actually is a cassette culture out there that's relatively
Speaker 1: healthy and uh and then uh, Pete in our management
Speaker 1: looked into uh people manufacturing eight tracks and sure enough
Speaker 1: there are actually two different companies now uh pressing eight
Speaker 1: tracks in the United States, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean we made we did the eight tracks against the
Speaker 1: limited edition. I'm sure there are people who are into
Speaker 1: a tracks listening right now who are like, that's that's
Speaker 1: my only thing, that's the thing I care about. You know,
Speaker 1: how can I get one? We made like two and
Speaker 1: fifty of them. And then it was just like the
Speaker 1: truth of it is, it's all of the eight tracks
Speaker 1: are essentially handmade. The guy who the guy that we're
Speaker 1: working with, he I didn't realize that this is how
Speaker 1: they did it. But it's it's actually like almost like
Speaker 1: an object lesson in um some future uh what is
Speaker 1: the term? Like real it's it's like an up cycled thing.
Speaker 1: He's he's uh, he's taking old eight tracks, cracking them
Speaker 1: open and replacing the parts inside them, putting them back together,
Speaker 1: and then putting new covers on them. So he's not
Speaker 1: they're not manufacturing new shells and new and new cartridges
Speaker 1: for these eight tracks. He's actually rehabbing old ones, which is,
Speaker 1: I guess the only way you can really do it. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think the demand that there's a lot. You
Speaker 1: can buy a lot of views a tracks on eBay
Speaker 1: for ten dollars and get a thousand highly nonfunctioning a Trex.
Speaker 1: The truth of the matter is a tracks are a
Speaker 1: terrible format just from a mechanical point of view. They
Speaker 1: do not last. But if you're driving around in your
Speaker 1: Pinto or something and you know you gotta it helps, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it creates the experience. Yeah, I've been. I've been.
Speaker 1: I've been watching the Americans during all this lockdown, which
Speaker 1: a show I had never watched before, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was very One of the things that's delightful about
Speaker 1: the show is, Uh, they clearly purchased like a baby
Speaker 1: blue Pinto at the beginning of the filming and every
Speaker 1: every fifth exterior scene somewhere is parked this this Pinto.
Speaker 1: And Uh, listeners out there, I'm sure many of them
Speaker 1: do not know what a Ford Pinto is, but uh,
Speaker 1: and the reason is because it is a really crummy car.
Speaker 1: If you there. There was a time when there are
Speaker 1: probably as many there it explodes, but it also just
Speaker 1: doesn't last. I think they're like classic rustbuckers. Did you
Speaker 1: think about every time you see of Volkswagen Beetle, there
Speaker 1: probably was a Ford Pinto manufactured exactly at the same time,
Speaker 1: but none of those cars lasted. You know, think about
Speaker 1: how many old Beetles you see, you see a million. Uh.
Speaker 1: You never see Pintos anymore. They just they just didn't
Speaker 1: make it. That's you also never see you never see
Speaker 1: a MC cars anymore either. Well, I mean, you know
Speaker 1: you mentioned watching UM the Americans during during lockdown UM.
Speaker 1: You know, listening to some of these tracks, I mean
Speaker 1: the single I Can't Remember the Dream uh, and even
Speaker 1: the opening tracks synopsis for Latecomers, there's a sense of
Speaker 1: certain anxiety and some of these songs, and I was
Speaker 1: wondering how much did the pandemic uh play, you know,
Speaker 1: impact the music you're working on. Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we I think we as writers, we have a natural
Speaker 1: impulse to just kind of hype every impulse. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we're if we're writing a song about anxiety,
Speaker 1: we tend whatever's kind of naturally in there we also
Speaker 1: sort of pump up. And it's I think that's true
Speaker 1: of almost everything. I mean, maybe it's just the nature
Speaker 1: of of writing that you wanted to be as extreme
Speaker 1: as it can be. If you're writing a song about
Speaker 1: being mad about a breakup, you end up writing a
Speaker 1: song about revenge. You know. It's like you tend to
Speaker 1: just make more out of things than might be there
Speaker 1: on a regular day. And something I've I've loved about
Speaker 1: your music is that so often there are these gorgeous
Speaker 1: melodies paired with these very kind of anxiety producing lyrics
Speaker 1: that really undercut the merriment of the music. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you more about, you know, your tendency towards
Speaker 1: the sort of lyrical bait and switch. Well, that's something
Speaker 1: that got spotted a while ago, and it wasn't something
Speaker 1: that we really thought about that much. Um, but I
Speaker 1: think it might really come out of trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to balance the elements within a song. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're writing a song, you have a lot of
Speaker 1: you have a lot of things at your disposal, Like
Speaker 1: you can, you can balance things. But one thing about
Speaker 1: melody that's that's unusual is that even though it might
Speaker 1: even though the overall idea of the song might be
Speaker 1: quite clearly complicated. Melodies have a way of simplifying your
Speaker 1: emotional response to things. I mean, I don't think I
Speaker 1: don't think our melodies are particularly cheerful, but I think
Speaker 1: we live in a time when melodies are almost an
Speaker 1: endangered species. So it's like writing anything with a song,
Speaker 1: any song with with a melody in it, um is
Speaker 1: is UH might might come across as seeming old fashioned,
Speaker 1: or or cheerful, or or sentimental. Um So I think
Speaker 1: I think it's something that just kind of crept in there.
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes I wonder if we should, like if
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to do the inverse of that,
Speaker 1: like right, really gloomy, kind of do doomy music and
Speaker 1: then with extremely happy lyrics. But somehow I don't think
Speaker 1: that's going to work as well. There was an interview
Speaker 1: you gave recently where you talked about I think you
Speaker 1: called it the lab work that goes into UH to
Speaker 1: writing a song, all the all the prep work, kind
Speaker 1: of laying out all the ingredients like a chef before
Speaker 1: you start cooking, Which is such an interesting notion because
Speaker 1: me as somebody who who has never written a song
Speaker 1: in his life. That's something I'd never really occurred to me.
Speaker 1: I want, what does that process like for you? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the evolution of the recording process is is
Speaker 1: uh pretty baroque at this point. I mean, when people
Speaker 1: were making records in the middle of the last century,
Speaker 1: they were just standing in front of a micro on
Speaker 1: and making a sound, but you know, by either by
Speaker 1: themselves or with a band or whatever. And what happened
Speaker 1: is what went to the record. Um. These days, we're
Speaker 1: working with computers and there's an incredible even just making
Speaker 1: a demo, there's there's so many decisions that can be made.
Speaker 1: And you know, the thing about working with computers is
Speaker 1: that if you're in that kind of inquiry period, there's
Speaker 1: no time limit, you're never gonna go and say, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it can be helped to have a time limit,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you you kind of can start going about
Speaker 1: the business of finishing a song. Before you've even started,
Speaker 1: you're just like, oh, you know, I want to make
Speaker 1: this this song be really strange and echoy and all.
Speaker 1: And you don't even have a chorus written, and you're
Speaker 1: and you're like swimming around in a reverb sound or
Speaker 1: something so um. Sometimes I lean on the inquiry process
Speaker 1: of finding sounds as a way to stave off writer's block.
Speaker 1: Um but um, it's when you're doing a demo and
Speaker 1: arranging a song. The thing that you really have to
Speaker 1: remember is like all the parts have to fit together.
Speaker 1: You're you're kind of making you're, you're, you're you're tweaking
Speaker 1: out all those little details like whether it's like, for instance,
Speaker 1: like if you're There's a song on the new album
Speaker 1: called Moonbeam Raised that has no and this is not
Speaker 1: something that I think people would notice necessarily, Um, but
Speaker 1: there's actually no high hat on on the song, and um,
Speaker 1: they're very I think there are very few people, very
Speaker 1: few drummers who would approach doing any pop song and think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to play the high hat on this.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that happens immediately when you
Speaker 1: don't play the high hat is you're making all this
Speaker 1: room for the vocal because the where the high hat
Speaker 1: sits in the mix is exactly the same spot as
Speaker 1: where a vocal is. In fact, sometimes if um, somebody
Speaker 1: doesn't sing an s in a song will actually just
Speaker 1: grab a closed high hat sound and put it in
Speaker 1: where where the s would be because it sounds exactly
Speaker 1: like a human being singing in s um. You know,
Speaker 1: if you if you sing a line like hands and
Speaker 1: you and you swallow this suh, you can just if
Speaker 1: you want it to be both, you just grab a
Speaker 1: stray closed high hat and put it in at the
Speaker 1: end of the hands. That will sub substitute very nicely
Speaker 1: for a well enunciated s. It's a little studio trick
Speaker 1: that we learned a long long time ago. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can also go back and sing an s. But
Speaker 1: it's like sometimes if you're working on digital stuff, it's
Speaker 1: just it's easy to just grab a strong s from
Speaker 1: a high hat. That's so interesting. Drum machine high hats
Speaker 1: work even better. But um, yeah, so so I guess
Speaker 1: we're always thinking about the final product, and you know,
Speaker 1: having recorded a lot of songs, it's you can kind
Speaker 1: of get there. Just it's it's it's a fun challenge
Speaker 1: to sort of, uh, you know, keep the sonics interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, you you're involved in so many different mediums.
Speaker 1: How much of your day is is taken up with music?
Speaker 1: Is it a daily practice for you? Is that something
Speaker 1: that you're always working on or does it depend on
Speaker 1: on your mood and other projects you have going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I basically go to work every day. I mean,
Speaker 1: my my dad was kind of a workaholic, and and
Speaker 1: I think I kind of got hit that kind of
Speaker 1: daily routine from him. He worked at a home office.
Speaker 1: He always worked every weekend. Um. Yeah, it's just something
Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's fun to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the truth is just like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: as we say in the tour of Us, when things
Speaker 1: are not going so great, you wanted to be in
Speaker 1: a band. Um, you know, I feel like incredibly grateful
Speaker 1: that I've I've been able to have like, you know,
Speaker 1: a life making recordings and and doing live shows. It's
Speaker 1: like it's incredibly fun and it's it never stops being interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: when I don't feel really up to finishing a song
Speaker 1: or or getting in the middle of of working on
Speaker 1: a song, I do have this kind of exploratory thing happening,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've got a I've got a I've
Speaker 1: got you know, twenty unfinished kind of rhythm. You know.
Speaker 1: I think in some ways we John and I probably
Speaker 1: have more in common with like hip hop artists who
Speaker 1: have like big libraries of beats stacked up. I think
Speaker 1: we have kind of our version of of that kind
Speaker 1: of work all not not as many lyric fragments and
Speaker 1: progression fragments. We also have these like kind of uh,
Speaker 1: just recording ideas, arrangement ideas, musical you know, beats and chords,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know what to call them. They're
Speaker 1: just kind of half They're just unfinished songs in a way.
Speaker 1: What was your initial point of connection creatively with with John?
Speaker 1: I know you go guys go way back to to
Speaker 1: high school, But was there a moment when your mind
Speaker 1: sort of met creatively? Well, we both ended up kind of.
Speaker 1: I was. Let's see, well, John and I were friends
Speaker 1: in high school. I didn't really play an instrument in
Speaker 1: high school. Um, then the sort of new way of
Speaker 1: punk rock explosion or nothin seventy seven happened, and my
Speaker 1: friend Brad Smith gave me a guitar, uh, which was
Speaker 1: really how I started playing. And I started writing songs
Speaker 1: right away because it was easier to write new songs
Speaker 1: than figure out how to play quickly enough to play
Speaker 1: other people's songs. And um, this is all really much.
Speaker 1: At the end of high school, John went away to
Speaker 1: Rhode Island and was in an actual was in a
Speaker 1: real professional band when he was like nineteen years old
Speaker 1: and I was eighteen UM and started doing home recording
Speaker 1: and we both moved to New York at the same time.
Speaker 1: John moved to New York to kind of make it
Speaker 1: big with his other band, and UM, I was going
Speaker 1: to art school at Pratt and I had been in
Speaker 1: a band with another high school friend of ours when
Speaker 1: I was living in Ohio for just like six months,
Speaker 1: called the Blackouts, and that was super fun. So both
Speaker 1: John and I were having this like band experience. UM.
Speaker 1: When we started doing this, it was kind of more
Speaker 1: of just like a home recording project. I don't think
Speaker 1: we knew how we would take it out out because
Speaker 1: we didn't have drummer UM, but we started making recordings
Speaker 1: and uh, the idea that sort of the abstract idea
Speaker 1: of having a band appealed to us, but it didn't
Speaker 1: seem really realistic. And then this fellow that we knew UM,
Speaker 1: who was from New York City, started doing a one
Speaker 1: man band thing with a drum machine, which seemed really revolutionary,
Speaker 1: Like he had a Roland like eight seven oh seven
Speaker 1: or something some some very early Roland kind of very
Speaker 1: toy like, uh, drum machine. But he you know, he
Speaker 1: had really good songs. He was a really good singer
Speaker 1: and a really good guitar player. His name was his
Speaker 1: stage was Mick Milk, and um, he had and it
Speaker 1: was one of those things where he had a huge
Speaker 1: following because he had gone just gotten out of college
Speaker 1: and so all his college trans will show up. So
Speaker 1: whenever we did a show, there'd be like a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty people there, all just partying their brains out. And
Speaker 1: but we didn't know that. We just thought, oh, he's
Speaker 1: doing the new kind of music that everybody wants to hear.
Speaker 1: He's doing drum machine music. So um, it seemed like
Speaker 1: kind of a sassy move to, uh work with the
Speaker 1: drum machine, because all of a sudden, you're sort of
Speaker 1: liberated from from this big social hurdle of finding a
Speaker 1: drummer who likes your music. I think. I mean, somebody
Speaker 1: said if there were twice as many drummers in New
Speaker 1: York City, there'd be twice as many bands, and I
Speaker 1: think that's really true. Um, you know, New York City
Speaker 1: is a very hostile place to try to start a
Speaker 1: band in the first place. It's very hard to find
Speaker 1: places where you can make noise, um, even just small
Speaker 1: amounts of noise. So uh, that was really the start
Speaker 1: of it for me and John and UM. For a while,
Speaker 1: it was really just UM, I don't think we had
Speaker 1: any big professional ambitions. I mean we our professional ambitions
Speaker 1: kind of stopped at the idea of just getting shows
Speaker 1: like we knew we could get chose and that was
Speaker 1: a big enough challenge. You're about to go, speaking of
Speaker 1: shows out on the road for a blated thirtieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of anniversary tour for Flood, what is your relationship like
Speaker 1: to that album now thirty years on. Oh, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny doing the Flood shows versus just doing regular shows,
Speaker 1: because it's almost inadvertently a trojan Trojan Horse, because I
Speaker 1: don't we we sell them to shows where we don't
Speaker 1: play Birdhouse and Your Soul and Assemble and we usually
Speaker 1: play Particle Man, and we often play the song Twisting
Speaker 1: and Dead and Your Racist Friend, and we play a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a clutch of songs off that record
Speaker 1: that are some of our best known songs. There are
Speaker 1: also songs on that record that are exceptionally unusual even
Speaker 1: by our standards, And so when to go about doing
Speaker 1: a flood show where we're playing the complete album in
Speaker 1: a weird way where I wonder whose dream we're really fulfilling?
Speaker 1: Um because they, you know, I guess, I guess for
Speaker 1: for people in the front row, they're just you know,
Speaker 1: kind of basking in the glory that is that most
Speaker 1: popular album. But just from a theatrical point of view,
Speaker 1: I always wonder if it's actually what people were bargaining for,
Speaker 1: because a regular show is much closer to a greatest
Speaker 1: hit show than a flood show. But you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we're proud of the album. It was a big leap
Speaker 1: forward for us in terms of being record makers. We
Speaker 1: learned a lot making the record, a lot of technology,
Speaker 1: it evolved, and the circumstances on which we made the
Speaker 1: record were a lot less, uh tense than we actually
Speaker 1: had time and focus. And it was it because that
Speaker 1: was the that was the first project we did were
Speaker 1: being something being in the band and recording was really
Speaker 1: like our that was our professional creative challenge. Like before
Speaker 1: then we were working in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: seeing of the studios for you know, tiny you know,
Speaker 1: just for tiny numbers of hours working as frantically as
Speaker 1: we could. So it was nice to actually just be
Speaker 1: able to have the time and focus to do a record.
Speaker 1: Thinking about your incredibly diverse career, normally in music, but
Speaker 1: in just different arenas as well. Has there been a
Speaker 1: creative venture for for you that you know has gone
Speaker 1: on fulfilled so far? Is there anything left that that
Speaker 1: you both would really like to uh to achieve, either
Speaker 1: musically or otherwise. Um. Everybody tells us we should do
Speaker 1: a Broadway musical, but I don't really know what it
Speaker 1: would be. Um. In the back of my mind, I
Speaker 1: think whoever does a q and On musical first will
Speaker 1: be the big cultural winner. Um, although I don't know
Speaker 1: how safe that would be. Maybe you just get stocks
Speaker 1: and then someone would burn down your house. But um,
Speaker 1: but I still think like uh when I think of
Speaker 1: the really interesting musicals of the past, like like Hair
Speaker 1: for instance. You know Hair was made at the height
Speaker 1: of the Vietnam War. There's no particular reason, and and
Speaker 1: Vano War was just as contentious as any other war.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are plenty of plenty of riots in
Speaker 1: the streets over that one. So I don't see why
Speaker 1: there couldn't be a Q and non musical. Um, but uh,
Speaker 1: we haven't really taken it to that seriously. I think
Speaker 1: it would be it would be nice to do something
Speaker 1: like that, though not specifically a Q ANDN musical, but
Speaker 1: to do some kind of to do some kind of
Speaker 1: musical projects that could could go on without us being
Speaker 1: the engine behind it. I think it would be fun.
Speaker 1: You were the SpongeBob song, right for Yeah, Yeah, that was.
Speaker 1: I mean we've done a lot of kind of one
Speaker 1: off things where people call us up and say, like, well,
Speaker 1: you do a song, you know, write a song for
Speaker 1: this thing or that thing. We just did a thing
Speaker 1: for the Central Park show on Apple Plus and that
Speaker 1: was fun as well. But yeah, it's just doing something
Speaker 1: that was sort of a bigger format and had the
Speaker 1: sensibility of the band would be would be an interesting challenge. Um.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. I mean, we could even do
Speaker 1: an you know, an animated do do like a like
Speaker 1: an animated film that had music to it. I think
Speaker 1: would be interesting. We've worked with a lot of great
Speaker 1: animators over the years, and it would be fun to
Speaker 1: kind of really dive deeper into that world. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, right now, it's like between the live shows
Speaker 1: and and just making albums. Uh. But then again, like
Speaker 1: you know, uh, we just decided that people are still
Speaker 1: making albums. I feel like Spotify is kind of decided
Speaker 1: that people aren't making albums anymore. So have you have
Speaker 1: you heard this term Lucy's being it's it's it's what,
Speaker 1: it's what people if, it's what people at Spotify or
Speaker 1: not at Spotify, but people working within the world of
Speaker 1: Spotify refer to like all the preview tracks and all
Speaker 1: the one off songs that are released into the world,
Speaker 1: because that's a really you know, We've released five teaser
Speaker 1: tracks off this album, and like our our audience is saying, like,
Speaker 1: why are you previewing so many songs off the album?
Speaker 1: But their their acts that basically dole out every song
Speaker 1: on the album before they put the album out. And uh,
Speaker 1: but evidently the in the inside terminology is Lucy's, which
Speaker 1: is uh in New York City, is is like buying
Speaker 1: a single cigarette at a bodega. Uh, if you're trying
Speaker 1: to they certainly do do it. I can I'm not
Speaker 1: a smoker, but I can tell you that Lucy's are
Speaker 1: very popular in lots of bodega's. I think they cost
Speaker 1: I think they still cost buck. I did not know that.
Speaker 1: I I live out in Williamsburg. I have to go
Speaker 1: check on my corner bodega when I got home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: give it a try. How's Williamsburg doing. I haven't been
Speaker 1: in Williamsburg in years now. Oh it is wild. I
Speaker 1: mean I've been in my same apartments the dividing line
Speaker 1: between Williamsburg and Bushwick, and it's I mean, there are
Speaker 1: the whole whole blocks that are unrecognizable to me that
Speaker 1: I've been there in ten years. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: what's funny is I moved to Williamsburg. And what's funny
Speaker 1: to me is, you know, I moved to Williamsburg in
Speaker 1: the eighties and there was never ever any new construction.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like nobody, nobody was investing in Williamsburg at all.
Speaker 1: And then right as I was leaving, I sort of realized,
Speaker 1: you know, I felt like I could hear the the
Speaker 1: the engines of the of the Renault trucks coming down
Speaker 1: the tree, and everything seems to have been either facelifted
Speaker 1: or just completely gutted and restored. It's it's insane how
Speaker 1: much construction is happening here. But I think it's because
Speaker 1: the housing stock is just really crummy, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean the original stuff was made. Really the apartments that
Speaker 1: I lived in were so so bad, so raw. There
Speaker 1: was the apartment that that dial A song was housed in.
Speaker 1: There was not a parallel wall or ceiling. I mean
Speaker 1: like it was like it was it was Van Gogh's bedroom.
Speaker 1: Everything was, you know, at this jaunty angle. The whole
Speaker 1: building had kind of sunk to the right. It was
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was it was rough. All the drawers
Speaker 1: on my desk hang open because that is some urban
Speaker 1: realness there. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, you know, Williamsburg was.
Speaker 1: It was fun while it lasted, but it turned into
Speaker 1: like St. Mark's place. I just could I couldn't handle
Speaker 1: the population density. Also, when I first moved into my building,
Speaker 1: I was the youngest person by decades. It was all
Speaker 1: like old Polish ladies. And by the time I moved out, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was like a technow in DJ living above me
Speaker 1: and at two and it's like he had like supports
Speaker 1: facing the floor on and at two in the morning,
Speaker 1: it was to be like and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, Like I'm a guitar player, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: like taking pounding a broom on the ceiling or like yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna start like can't you please turn it down?
Speaker 1: But they did push. They pushed me out. The guy
Speaker 1: the wall that it butts my bed um starts doing
Speaker 1: the same thing, starts playing tech. Begins at three in
Speaker 1: the morning, ends at five. I don't know what I
Speaker 1: do that that's what it wears off. That's what it
Speaker 1: wears off. Yeah, yeah, I think you know, you come
Speaker 1: back from the clubs and you're still feeling it, so
Speaker 1: it's like there you go. Um, yeah, it's a party
Speaker 1: zone for sure. The first thing that happened we lived
Speaker 1: on the North eighth Street across from Teddy's, and uh,
Speaker 1: like it was always on weekends, every weekend. I mean,
Speaker 1: this part was kind of like living in the West
Speaker 1: Village or something, because a lot of people would go
Speaker 1: to Williensburg on dates. You know, there's like a lot
Speaker 1: of people would It was kind of a date destination
Speaker 1: for other people other areas of New York City, and
Speaker 1: people would always be having breakups on our block. You know,
Speaker 1: they would walk off off of Bedford Avenue and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's find someplace quiet so we can yell and cry
Speaker 1: at each other and um so every you know, every
Speaker 1: Friday night or Saturday night and be like, when is
Speaker 1: it good time to talk about it? You? And it's
Speaker 1: a horrible thing waking up to people breaking up. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm trying to picture like that, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean it was this where this is where the dialo
Speaker 1: song answering machinems also had sometimes yeah for anally. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys, keep it down. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make some music in here. Wow. I mean that's a
Speaker 1: lot of energy in that in that corner, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean thinking about that, those confluence of of influences there. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I also I did have an open high speed
Speaker 1: WiFi uh modem that I just I just defeated the
Speaker 1: password of it. So basically because I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't need to hide my modem, you know, I can.
Speaker 1: I I was. I think I was one of the
Speaker 1: earliest people to get whatever the high speed pipe was,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I'm just going to share this with
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. I'll be in Teddy's drinking coffee and wishing
Speaker 1: I had high speed internet. So I just I just
Speaker 1: opened it up and sure enough, you know, it only
Speaker 1: had to travel halfway down the block. And so for
Speaker 1: years I would look at all those people and Teddy's
Speaker 1: with their with their uh you know, laptops open, working
Speaker 1: on whatever they were working on, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm helping those people stay connected with the Internet. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is gonna sound like a silly question,
Speaker 1: but it's it's since it's a sincere one and it's
Speaker 1: one that I'm I'm currently grappling with in my own life.
Speaker 1: How is moving to you know, nature affected you creatively?
Speaker 1: Like have you found it easier to focus? Have you
Speaker 1: found it more you know, inspiring. I know that's such
Speaker 1: a cliched way of of thinking about it, but how
Speaker 1: has that that shift been for you? Well? You know
Speaker 1: the thing, the truth is like, no matter what room
Speaker 1: you're making you're writing in, you're kind of just writing
Speaker 1: inside a room. So I mean, it's nice to be
Speaker 1: in kind of a prettier part of the world. But
Speaker 1: um but I like New York City too. I Mean
Speaker 1: I think of New York City as as as kind
Speaker 1: of a beautiful place in its own way. Um, I
Speaker 1: for most of my adult life Uh. I wrote and
Speaker 1: recorded in one one room in one apartment, and that
Speaker 1: was my workspace and my living space for many years
Speaker 1: as well. And leaving that place did make me think, like, um,
Speaker 1: what is that part of like broadcast news where the
Speaker 1: woman says to Albert Brooks, like, maybe it's because you
Speaker 1: realize the good part of your life is over and
Speaker 1: the bad part of your life is beginning. And I
Speaker 1: think I was a little bit apprehensive that I was
Speaker 1: leaving the place that was where my creativity came from,
Speaker 1: which is a ridiculous and and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: that's not it doesn't work that way. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: just that's just being super very superstitious. But um but yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of you know, especial actually because so much
Speaker 1: of what I'm doing, and they might be giants is
Speaker 1: a computer based you know. I mean it's a lot
Speaker 1: of it is just like combing through audio files and
Speaker 1: doing like really intense pointless editing. Um it I wish
Speaker 1: I wish it was a bigger change, you know. I
Speaker 1: wish being in the country meant like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: everything's pastoral now it's it's it's still very much uh,
Speaker 1: you know, very much about looking at a screen and
Speaker 1: that I wish it was less that, but such as
Speaker 1: such as modern music making, hauling an old stud or
Speaker 1: four track or something and just do it like that instead. Right,
Speaker 1: those are the well, that's my those are my roots.
Speaker 1: I mean I've got I've still have a t X
Speaker 1: four track, but um, and it works. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's that's a whole other challenge. Well, my my last question,
Speaker 1: I don't know to up too much more of your time,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately it's a big one. I have never written
Speaker 1: a song before. How do I start? Uh, well, um,
Speaker 1: you might want to do you play an instrument? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I just can't write. I would this, this would be
Speaker 1: this would be My best strategy is get get a
Speaker 1: tape recorder or your phone and just record uh playing
Speaker 1: your playing the instrument that you play, just going back
Speaker 1: and forth between two chords. Um, that can be kind
Speaker 1: of interesting chords or chords that aren't so related to
Speaker 1: one another. And then as you're listening back to that,
Speaker 1: sing over that and find yoursel put yourself in a
Speaker 1: place where nobody can hear you singing. You know. So
Speaker 1: that's important because you don't want people to make you
Speaker 1: feel self conscious. But but that. But you know, disconnecting
Speaker 1: the act of playing the instrument and singing can be
Speaker 1: useful because singing and playing at the same time is
Speaker 1: not the necessarily the easiest thing to do. So you'll
Speaker 1: sort of find you can get like more fluid results
Speaker 1: that way. And uh, you can even like start singing
Speaker 1: like a melody without words and then listen back to that,
Speaker 1: you know, the the instrument and the and the voice
Speaker 1: together and figure out like, well, what words would go
Speaker 1: with that, and that would be I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm like doing the Paul McCartney junior thing, the Paul
Speaker 1: McCartney one two three. Somebody who's playing out some Beatle
Speaker 1: maniac was pointing out something interesting about that special to me,
Speaker 1: which is that Rick Rubin, who is a musical person
Speaker 1: and is certainly you know, can talk about sophisticating musical ideas,
Speaker 1: he had the opportunity to ask Paul McCartney what the
Speaker 1: opening chord of A Hard Days Night really is, and um,
Speaker 1: for people who are not obsessive Beatle fans out there,
Speaker 1: the opening chord of of Hard Day Night, which is
Speaker 1: also like the opening chord of the anthology series, and
Speaker 1: it sort of used as like the classic stinger on
Speaker 1: all uh Beatles related material. It's it's this really ambiguous
Speaker 1: chord because it's created by both a guitar doing like
Speaker 1: a sophysiated chord, a bass that's playing a note that
Speaker 1: isn't in the chord the guitar is playing, and then
Speaker 1: I guess on top of it, there's even a there's
Speaker 1: a kind of a phantom keyboard part being played by
Speaker 1: George Martin, which I I can't really hear, but but
Speaker 1: maybe I should listen closer. But but it is a
Speaker 1: very unstable and mysterious bit of musical information. And Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin had every opportunity to delve deep into that and
Speaker 1: just didn't. I mean, I'm on, I think I'm in
Speaker 1: the midst of writing. It's up to seven thousand words
Speaker 1: and my editor is gonna kill me. Peace on the
Speaker 1: new letter B box set. So you're I was just
Speaker 1: earlier this week watching a ten minute tutorial on that chord,
Speaker 1: which go to show you what my life is like.
Speaker 1: It was like an f AD thirteen or some there's like,
Speaker 1: it's some insane chord. Well, what what is an f
Speaker 1: uh uh? Well, I mean that I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: what an F thirteen would be what is it? What
Speaker 1: is it? What is the interval that's being added? Um, well,
Speaker 1: we should take this off the air because I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about the Beatles. I mean, has
Speaker 1: has the movie come out? Has the Get Back movie?
Speaker 1: Are there any previews? All right, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: three minute trailer that dropped yesterday, which can trailer you.
Speaker 1: It's not the one that he did in December with,
Speaker 1: but it's it's like a three and a half minute
Speaker 1: It's so good everything about it. I mean even I
Speaker 1: mean some of the stuff you saw in anthology, you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the final anthology, but still it's just
Speaker 1: the clarity of it. It really it's like a play.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know they have the book that just
Speaker 1: came out to with Day by Day where they've excerpts
Speaker 1: from the transcripts and it reads like a Joe Orton
Speaker 1: play or something. I mean, it's just it's so funny.
Speaker 1: What was the Like, I'm trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: the director? Guy? Who is he? He's the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings guy, Peter Jackson, you know, his his take
Speaker 1: on not putting the record out during COVID reminds me
Speaker 1: of like listening to like Jerry Seinfeld talking about like,
Speaker 1: you know, how people shouldn't be sense, you know, political
Speaker 1: correctness is killing humor or something. It's like, why why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you put the movie out during COVID? We need this,
Speaker 1: We need this so bad, you gotta you know, you
Speaker 1: got a bunch of really depressed people who would like
Speaker 1: nothing more than to just bask in the glory that
Speaker 1: was the Beatles. Um you know, maybe slowly breaking up,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, but I hear that the you know
Speaker 1: that the movie is much more optimistic that even though
Speaker 1: they are breaking up, it's very clear that they still
Speaker 1: got a lot of joy out of the process, which
Speaker 1: is not obviously does not come across in the original
Speaker 1: movie Let It Be at All, which is a hoomsday thing.
Speaker 1: I read an article that was saying that Let It
Speaker 1: Be the movie that they did one preview of the
Speaker 1: original edit of the movie and it was decided that
Speaker 1: all cameo appearances of other people had to be cut out. Well,
Speaker 1: that was an how inclined edict that was like because
Speaker 1: he was like, no, it's just gonna be about my clients.
Speaker 1: That's why all the shots are so tight, and it
Speaker 1: feels so claustrophobic, and you kind of even though they're
Speaker 1: in that you know, big Twickenham sound stage, it feels
Speaker 1: so like it doesn't feel nice to watch that. It's
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Yeah, so, I
Speaker 1: mean evidently in the original edit, like they're all these
Speaker 1: people hanging on, like you know, Mick Jaggers coming around,
Speaker 1: Keith Richard's coming around, and and all these other people
Speaker 1: play into it much much more. Um, but uh, you
Speaker 1: just don't see those people. So I wonder if they'll
Speaker 1: be I wonder if it'll be just be a parade
Speaker 1: of the fresh faces of classic rock. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to that. Uh right, you know, as
Speaker 1: soon as get off with me, you gotta check out
Speaker 1: the new just dropped yesterday. It's so great it will
Speaker 1: make your day. It's it's really really wonderful. I can't
Speaker 1: wait for Well, let's let's wrap up here before we
Speaker 1: make people unconscious talking about the Beatles. We got that
Speaker 1: part out. Well. Thank you so much for your your
Speaker 1: your your time and your music and your advice to
Speaker 1: me for songwriting. I hope anyone else is out there
Speaker 1: who's who struggling to how to uh, you know, put
Speaker 1: your hand on the white keys and then you move
Speaker 1: your hand over a little bit and that's another chord.
Speaker 1: And that's good. Yeah. Yeah, I love about me, just
Speaker 1: like it's easier for Paul McCartney. Thanks Paul, exactly. Yeah. Everything.
Speaker 1: I found it very helpful. I found your advice very helpful.
Speaker 1: So thank you for that. John, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thank you With you, sir, have a beautiful rest your day.
Speaker 1: Check out that trailer and hope to see you on
Speaker 1: stage soon. Yeah, peace and love. We hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode of Inside the Studio, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio or
Speaker 1: other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.