I'm excited to talk with you about this album which is at number 59 on Apple music's 100 best albums of all time we've taken on a pretty lofty a lofty uh ambition here Matt helders by trying to create a list in 2024 that creates hierarchy in the Arts at a time when there's more art being released than
ever before and most kids aren't think in the list ways but the way we look at it is an album like am to us I'm so happy it's on the list um to me it it it it felt Timeless the day came out and I feel like I could put it on at any given moment in time and it's a perfect it perfectly encapsulates not only where
the band was at but also where I'm at at any moment in my life it moves with me does that make sense yeah yeah how know you me it's it's something that um it still comes on quite a bit in my life not that I'm just like sitting listening to my own music but like my kid loves listening to that one and the certain
song of that album that she loves listening to so and it still feels it feel like it was 11 years ago whatever it was when we met it you know um Alex as a writer you've you've been the closest you and your friends to to his process um ever since the band began you see how he moves and how he finds the character that's going to help tell the
story to unveil whatever he wants to unveil in that moment you see right through it uh we we it be it belongs to us and we hear it but we can only use our imagination you're there um what kind of mood was Alex in that you know betraying any trust but just from an observational point of view where was he
at in terms of the way he was moving through his life when he was writing these songs cuz there's so light on their feet and there so many of them are still sitting in that living room at 2: a.m. with the blinds drawn you know yeah I think it was just a particularly sort of like fun time for it and like you know like career-wise and
personal life like I said we just moved and we were me and him were living together at that time we'd like got this place together you know so just like experiencing all of that so we were really just sort of enjoying that part of his lives and he was yeah I think he was just in a good place in terms of like having fun
with it so then he meant he was having fun with the writing too and the way we were recording was just sort of like relaxed and easy it's one of those though that record if we didn't have any sort of deadline we'd probably still be making it now cuz we just kept like seeing what was around the corner we
like oh what if we try this yeah and he was sort of wearing his influences on his sleeve a bit more than he had done before and it was sort of like like all the hip-hop stuff was coming in a bit more in the influencers and then how to make that sound like us still and um but yeah I think part of that was just
enjoying everything around it too what were your drumming influences on this record because again your performance on every art dat monkey's album is very different and this one feels like it's it's it's very powerful but it it lacks some of the kind of frantic energy of previous records and it certainly is
where you've ended up at this point in your career which is really serving the at the alar of the song very delicately and Tastefully so what were you trying to achieve with your parts on this um I think I I think as a whole the band was sort of influenced in how a band like Black Sabbath can be heavy with few ele Groove yeah yeah and it's
not just like throwing a load of sounds at it this and and I find that with the drums too there's like moments where you can thought like have a bit of flare there and then there's moment it's like what do I want to know what it's like you're letting everyone else do the talking and you're just there sort of
like keeping everybody steady then so I think Black Sabbath was a big one for me I've always sort of had the I I sort like I think I learned to play drums playing along the hip-hop so that's always in the background somewhere but when I really got into drums I was into like lead Zeppelin and
stuff so like the heavy side of it comes from there you know what what your feelings are about am and about that time in your life and the sound and the feeling are perfectly capturing like the wide open first impressions of a life in America with means yeah yeah exactly yeah that's kind of what it is it's true
it is it's weird how it always lines up with just a big change in lifestyle and life that I'm still in like I'm still here yeah and it's it and even again like that black key tour was like a pivotal thing for us because like until you're on something like that you don't really see most of these places or play
most of these places yeah there's no like call for it sometimes and like we got to play in all these different places and also like win over some crowds we'd never really been the support band we'd obviously been lucky enough in like England and Europe to like sort of Skyrocket to a position where we were like headlining and as
much as we tried to like hold back we just were there whether we liked it or not and night here we got to sort of like dip our toe in it and be the underdog a little bit and then you start to see people in like our merch at the front and waiting for our and showing up early to listen to us so like it all
like came along at the right time like that record that t leading into making this record living here Al together and then sort of seeing it out and then toring that record just became yeah it just became like a a pivotal thing I think do you think that like the success of an album like am which again became this kind of very
loose hipped fun sort of of California wide open man whose house party we going to now type of experience so beautifully captured for all the nuances of the good times and the tough times do you think that when Alex achieves that so succinctly and so perfectly that he feels instinctively like I'm cannot go
back to that party like I cannot be that guy again like God forbid I become that writer where everyone wants that from me even though we kind of weren't done with that album I would LED it double album in the AM era but he has to almost leave the party yeah I think that's true he that's kind of more than a metaphor
than you probably even realized as well for him but I I think that I think there was a moment where we we consciously tried to see what it would be like if we did an AM type of thing and there's this weird version of us I forget what Sun it is that we did Oh No in fact no it was it was even on am we tried to do certain
songs more in the style of like are you mine and it didn't quite that felt a bit forced like we were trying to like really like bring the rock too much to some of these songs that needed to be a bit more Soulful and like hip-hop Sounder and there is a weird version that I've got somewhere of like why' you
only call me when you high that sounds a bit like oh you might that is like really fun to listen to but it would it just want have worked um so I think he is yeah I think once he's done with something he really has to like feel like he move on to the next thing and it's like because he's given everything
to that moment and there's nothing left after that I don't think well it speaks to his ability to write from a character's point of view too and we're so obsessed with our favorite writers and artists that we it's hard for us not to try to align the songs with with with their Li with with the lives of the
people who wrote them because it makes it more of a human experience but Alex is a character-driven artist he does write from a character's point of view and this was that particular era for that particular character yeah exactly yeah and it's and while he's doing it he's fully in it and then when he's not
he's he's on to the next one so what's it like when he has to put that when you're on stage and you can see him and he's he's going from being the person who's singing songs from the car which are one of the most beautiful incredible songs any writer's written in my lifetime and then it's like oh I'm looking at the set list you know here
comes Arabella or Here Comes why do you only call me when you're high like do you see sometimes almost like he has to make a change in the way that he shift in posture or something a little bit yeah there is and and I think it's I mean that kind of is also often planned ahead a little bit like there's a lot of
thought that goes into the set list in general anyway but also for those reasons of like what's going to I mean like sonically what's going to make sense going into each other but also like yeah like me how can I be this person and then back into that person like one of these characters is 17 years
old and one of them's like 36 or it's like so it is got we I I like don't always understand how he can do it but yeah he manages it so I think it's very gracious and it's a gift and I'm always really sort of very grateful with any artist in particular an artist like Alex who is bowiesque to me I think he's
Bowie I think I think he's he is a shape-shifting human who writes from a character's point of view with great detail and I'm always really grateful that he's able to bring these characters onto the same stage and make them make sense cuz it's like a Broadway play every night trying to do that yeah exactly I mean you know floor is
character is nowhere near the character way over here no and I think am we were probably method acting more than we ever of as well I think you were uh it is a masterful body of work man it's a perfect 12 songs number 59 and apple music's 100 best albums of all time um and I just I love that somehow through
this voting process and everything that we' sort of put together to try and make this make sense for us and not just reflect other people's lists that you know we have these albums that that have sort of made in the last 10 15 years starting to really you know knock some of these old out a good sign is it yeah