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2:49
No matter how much I try, John Mayer, I always go back to you and I don't know why that is. Aw.
2:54
Even though we just Even though we've just met, I feel like it's been like that forever.
2:57
Well, I feel like we've known each other I mean I I watch your your show and I listen to your show and then I feel like people have mentioned me to you quite a bit. That's true.
3:07
Uh Many, many times actually throughout the years.
3:10
In in in light I'm not even going to try and sort of like like, you know, pretend that it's it's it's otherwise in a light that is very favorable.
3:17
People always talk about you in a very, very nice light.
3:21
I worked hard on that the last six, seven years. And before that?
3:25
Uh just a smash and grab of everything I could possibly figure out all at once.
3:31
of your age, do you think in the way that you were introduced to this whole thing, so much success so young, really? I mean, quickly. Yes.
3:35
I I wouldn't have let myself say yes to that years ago because I would have thought it was a little reductive and but it's true.
3:42
Uh if I if we were to break it down more, it wouldn't be the conventional version of that, but yes, I I dropped in at the top. Yeah, you did.
3:53
You know, and I remember like if you look back on some of the songs like Gravity is me going like, "Hey, I'm kind of aware that there's a little bit of a volcano happening." You know.
4:03
Uh And you know, I see it happen the the best thing for me is that having gone through I think probably every version of some relationship with success and failure.
4:14
Um I think it probably makes me a a good uh I don't know, overseer for other people who are uh who are moving their way through it, you know.
4:24
Uh Do you get a chance to do that very often?
4:25
I mean, I know that we'll talk a little bit more about him later on, but seeing as how we're diving straight in, you know, Shawn Mendes obviously has uh has spoken to me personally actually and on the record about the influence that you had on helping him understand things a little bit better cuz he was young, too.
4:36
Yeah, I mean, uh Shawn's just a better version of me in a lot of ways.
4:41
Yeah, Shawn's like John Mayer 2.
4:43
0 without the the weird software viruses.
4:46
It's like I was a beta version of a celebrity and he's just a better He's a better version of a celebrity than I ever was.
4:54
Uh yeah, I mean He's certainly more even.
4:56
Yeah, he's he's he doesn't he's not as volatile, you know.
4:59
But, I like where I've ended up, put it that way.
5:01
I I Now that everything's sort of flattened out and we've leveled out at cruising altitude, it's lovely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:10
And what is what is cruising altitude mean on a day-to-day basis?
5:12
Like how do you just stay in that in that place because you've been at the other end where it's been nuts.
5:17
Um yeah, I I feel like my ambitions have settled in.
5:20
Like I've retired from a certain type of ambition, which I think is right.
5:26
It means talk about that for a second.
5:27
What was that ambition before that you was do you were chasing so much?
5:31
You ever download a file, but it doesn't tell you how big the file is?
5:35
It just tells you how many megs you're downloading.
5:37
You're like, "How big is the file?" It'll be like be like 4. 5 megs of question mark.
5:39
And then you'll get that striped bar.
5:42
This is Apple talk, you know. Know your audience.
5:46
Uh You don't know when you're growing up what the limit of what is available to you is.
5:52
So, your whole concept is world domination. Yeah.
5:56
And I think it's a very simple mistake.
5:58
Now, the I think the play out of it isn't always simple, but it's a very simple miscalculation to go, "Well, I've got I've got so much, but maybe it's just 1/10 of what I could have."
6:10
take everything that you want, but will it ever be enough? That's the bottom line.
6:14
Well, so here's another analogy for you.
6:16
I used to have a Segway, right?
6:16
And when I first got a Segway or you had a real Segway?
6:22
Like the Segway you ride.
6:23
that people made out like they were the simple ride of the future, but they actually hurt a lot more people than is actually on the record.
6:29
Well, this was my point exactly.
6:32
Uh everybody wipes out on a Segway once, but only once.
6:35
Cuz then you're like, "Oh, that's how far forward I can tip."
6:39
That thing that seems so simple is actually one step down from an ATV. Yeah, man.
6:44
Cuz you fall off it and the thing keeps going and it hits other people and you go, "Okay."
6:49
a trade mark with a mind of its own.
6:50
That's Well, that's fame. Oh, well done. See what I'm saying? Oh, I love it.
6:55
So, uh it's a very simple miscalculation.
6:58
You go, "Oh, because this was given to me in this short of period of time."
7:00
You could say it's a blackjack metaphor, too.
7:03
You know, you're like, "Oh, I'm the world's greatest blackjack player." You realize Yeah. Yeah. understand the metaphor.
7:08
Yeah, and then you go, "Oh, no, you're just lucky.
7:09
You just had a good run at the beginning."
7:11
But, I've I highly encourage every artist to keep going until they fall off the Segway and then I encourage the fans to go, "Got it, dude. Okay, cool. We love you."
7:19
And then everyone to go, "Well, all right.
7:21
Now we know that's the confines in which we're working in."
7:24
But, for me now, like cruising altitude is um loving what I do, being really efficient with it where like I'm I'm not playing music to get attention necessarily like I was.
7:35
I'm not playing music to have the world see me a certain way.
7:40
Like that part of my life has settled in really nicely and I'm actually more interested in helping other people um with their ambitions than I am with with anything else I need to do in terms of making people love me. and thriving.
7:53
I'm very thrilled to be able to make a a genuine contact with you at this point in your life. Thank you, man.
7:58
Because I'm I'm excited about the conversation we're going to have not just today but in the future and ongoing because I think that you're in that place, you know, you're in an honest and open place.
8:04
But I'm also excited that we have new music and you know, we are now sort of I mean we dive straight in.
8:07
I mean that was just like go time.
8:09
So I feel like 4 minutes into our relationship I'm going to press play on this brand new song and then come back and talk about it.
8:14
But this is a brand new song called New Light. Right on.
8:16
And I'm so excited to play it. Me too. All right. Yeah. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Beautifully done, bro. Thank you, man. Beautifully done.
12:02
That was really fun to have the first listen for me through these great speakers and realize that the thing holds up.
12:08
What I love as well is when I when we get artists in the room and that's a brand new song from John Mayer.
12:10
Just to reiterate Courtney Love and it is today's world record and to make it official so that everybody knows exactly what I'm talking about. WORLD RECORD! THERE IT IS.
12:17
It's going to be streaming right around the world on Apple Music.
12:20
Add it to your playlist, get it moving and get it shifting.
12:21
But watching you react to your own music in that way is a joy. Thank you.
12:24
And I've I've you know talked to so many artists and played so many songs in front of them for years and years and it's so interesting watching how people react.
12:33
And some people get very self-conscious and dip down inside themselves and not sure.
12:36
But there are other people like yourselves who are like, oh I'm going to enjoy this moment for everything it's worth. It depends on the song.
12:40
I've had I've had like ballads that were so heartfelt that I actually got anxious every time I played.
12:45
Like there's a song on my last record that's so intense that my like literally my heart would race when it was playing.
12:51
And I will say about this song that the fact that the artist is the one who created the song, you see how it's made, you question whether this part was what you wanted to do or like there's always this built-in feeling like, well my song isn't as like weaponized as a different person's song.
13:06
But this is different because every time it comes on I go, nope, sorry. It's just is that good?
13:12
It yeah, it's just military grade.
13:12
It's just like No, it is, man. The mix is beautiful.
13:15
All of the sonic you know everything the like basically the language of the song is everyone speaking to each other.
13:20
Yeah, it's you know what and I'll tell you what, as cocky as it sounded what I just said, like when you make songs a lot of that stuff is just luck where the frequencies of your idea like the literal sonic frequency just each thing in the stack just goes perfectly with the next.
13:37
We make so many songs in our lives and then every once in a while you get a magic track where you're like, "Oh, I didn't even mean to have it sound like that."
13:44
the ones that don't fit into place that easily, but you know there's some essence there?
13:46
I mean, are you faithful to them and see it through or do you move on?
13:49
Yeah, cuz you'll forget how hard it was once once you experience other people experience it for the first time.
13:52
For instance, this song was not easy to write lyrically. It just wasn't.
13:56
Like Because why is that?
13:58
It was written out of sequence, so I had the chorus and I had the second verse before I had the first verse.
14:05
didn't have a place to start yet.
14:06
I had to write the first verse in a way that would be reverse engineered to a place where as you heard it it still it made sense. Wow.
14:13
And yeah, that's there's code cracking involved.
14:17
So even I as I sit here and I'm like, "Oh, they should all be this effortless."
14:20
I went crazy for 2 weeks. about No I. D. working with him?
14:22
Now let's us talk about doing it for a second cuz his his Anyone who knows anything about him as a producer and subsequently as somebody who has helped other people, you know, facilitate their vision through record industry work and he's touched lots of parts of people's lives.
14:35
And you know, most recently on the Jay-Z record his work on that is exemplary. brilliant.
14:40
Unbelievable the way he was able to capture what Jay was trying to say in such an emotional honest way and give him the template to do it on.
14:45
Now working with him and you working in that world, you've definitely worked in all sorts of different genres before, so why did team up with No I. D.? What was it about him?
14:55
Um I liked the idea of still being the musician that I've always been, but changing the vocabulary a little bit.
15:03
Certainly this is not a hip-hop track, but it has a vitality to it that I think is really modern.
15:09
And it was interesting to work with him because he's just such a great uh artist in terms of samples and and and taking things and moving them around and really turning it into into an instrument.
15:22
There's no doubt like his use of Ableton is insane.
15:24
It's like a violin for him.
15:26
And I learned really quickly like what I could do and what I couldn't do.
15:31
Like he first few days he would bring up these samples and they were great. I'd be like put me in.
15:36
And because there wasn't So, hip-hop is a different harmonic agreement with the world than what I do is.
15:44
So, I you'd hear these loops and I'd go put me in and there'd be nowhere to go because harmonically speaking like I couldn't put a song on it.
15:52
You can only really put top line on it.
15:54
That's why there's only so many projects like that that work primarily in breakbeats and loops that are as successful as they are because the vocalists and the beatmaker have found a way to collaborate in that space.
16:01
Like No Worries Anderson .
16:03
Paak and Knxwledge that works for a reason. Smart dude. You're a smart dude.
16:07
So, what I learned really early on was that like oh, whatever these chops are, they have to be melodic so that they don't define what the one is not to get too like music theory.
16:19
So, that I can then do my thing over it.
16:23
So, there so it's not so constricting.
16:25
You didn't want to try something in a slightly more reduced fashion cuz we know how melodic where you can go melodically, but you didn't want to go okay, what do I sound like if I actually reduce my lane? Well, we tried. Right.
16:35
And I just I it I like wasn't feeling it. I love Black Keys.
16:38
If I start trying to do Black Keys stuff, I just don't buy it in myself.
16:42
Like I am just naturally hyperbolic. Don Outback?
16:47
No, yeah, I've heard of him.
16:51
You and him I reckon would be a double act I'd definitely want to go and see. That'd be great.
16:54
I mean in terms of straight face like is he being serious? Is he not being serious?
16:57
Like it's it's a real challenge. You two are good at it. Am I a puzzle?
17:05
I mean your body is a wonderland, your mind is a puzzle. What can I tell you? I know.
17:08
Your body is a wonderland is going to follow me for the rest of my life.
17:11
Did you ever expect when you wrote that for the first time it was so successful that it would come up in that context?
17:15
That was like the sixth song I ever wrote. But, hey, you know what?
17:18
Every Everyone should be so lucky to have something big enough that someone shouts it at them down a street. Nice pull, too. You know.
17:24
Uh so we just learned really quickly that oh, okay, if if if we go in on things that have melodic openness, then I can do my thing on it.
17:35
But, I have tried uh to to do a a more constrained sort of top line thing.
17:41
Almost character driven to some degree.
17:42
But, I don't buy it in myself.
17:42
I'm a very good judge of like, is this BS or not?
17:46
And if I hear something back to the speakers and it's me, and I don't think it's true, then I Number one, I can't finish it, but number two, like I don't respect myself when I hear you stand by it.
17:56
Oh my gosh, John Mayer is with us, man, and time is flying and and we might just carry on.
18:00
I'm having We're not even on the entree yet. not even there, man.
18:03
We're on the amuse-bouche, and it's this.
18:04
It's today's world record from John Mayer. It's called New Light. It's stunning.
18:09
We're going to play it again.
18:13
Ah, see the grace note at the start? Just killed me there.
18:14
I didn't get a chance to like fix that, and it's just like, we'll fix that in post. How many backing tracks?
18:22
How many How many vocal tracks there?
18:24
There's like three there.
18:25
There's not that many, but it's just lots of verb.
18:28
I'm the boy in your other phone.
18:32
Lighting up inside your drawer at home, all alone.
18:35
Pushing 40 in the friend zone. Great line.
18:40
We talk, and then you walk away every day.
18:43
Oh, you don't think twice about me. And maybe you're right. I'll do a harmonize. Okay, good.
18:52
But, if you give me just one night Oh, I like that.
18:58
New light one night I'm off.
19:04
Here's my Here's my phone. Here's my phone. Oh, I want to take two. I I to break through.
19:10
I want to know the real thing about you. So good.
19:15
So I can see you in a new light.
19:24
All those It's kind of That's my favorite stuff to do on the guitar. That's hard, too, man. Single note stuff? So tough.
19:32
That's the essence of funk. That's hard as hell.
19:35
The single note stuff is the essence of If you can do the single note stuff You're funky. The Ray Parker Jr. Crazy. The Nile Rodgers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Prince.
19:49
And also, you can't mistake the feel of that.
19:50
You could put it in whatever computer you want and try and do it and quantize it all you want, but you can't The feel is everything.
19:56
My favorite thing to do is do that single note stuff against drums. Yeah. I play with a drummer.
19:59
I'm a drum-playing guitar player.
20:01
You're a drum-playing Yeah, you are.
20:03
You're a drum-playing player. the drums. I stand by the drums. I work with the hi-hat.
20:06
And this was fun to play guitar around a you know, a a machine beat. Yeah. That's really fun.
20:13
it's super syncopated and And it allows me to push out Oh, I love this percussion as well.
20:22
That's That's No ID's loop in there somewhere and that's That's me taking a LinnDrum going That little key change in the bass makes it all emotional.
20:33
Oh, and then Super sweet like It's like Lionel Richie Hello or something. Exactly. It is though.
20:39
It has that timeless feel.
20:41
Oh, that's This is the I tried to make a song that was all the best melodic stuff from the '80s.
20:45
It's got a little bit of like nobody going to break my stride. Nobody going to hold me.
20:50
And it's also like It's like Say say say, you know.
20:52
These these And then here's what I do.
20:58
This is called the thanks for listening.
21:00
One more hook at the end.
21:01
What do I do with all this?
21:04
What do I do with all this love that's running through my veins for you? Take note, kids.
21:11
What do what do with all this What do what do with all this love that's running through my veins for you?
21:18
What do what do with all this What do what do with all this love that's running through my veins for you?
21:22
And then one last little hook.
21:25
What do what do with all this riff, I mean?
21:27
What do with all this woo?
21:32
Only one thing wrong with this. It's not 6 minutes? No. You faded it out.
21:38
I just don't know why you would do that.
21:39
There was so much groove and momentum to that, and then you faded it out.
21:43
I'm a big fan of the fade out. say that.
21:45
Stealing the thing you want to hear at the end. Oh, it's awful. You know why?
21:48
Cuz it's just got that essence of just like I just could have kept going for days. then listen to it again.
21:52
That's how you make people want to listen to the song again.
21:55
Just start slowly removing the thing they like the most. I'm buying it, man. I think that's so true.
22:00
But I would say this, I do think it I mean, for me, this would have been a bit of I don't know if if you if you'd kind of gone like this and just and written it like What do I do with all this love that's running through my veins?
22:18
I mean, what's not to love about that, you know what I Lights up.
22:19
Thanks for coming, everybody.
22:23
Thanks for coming, everybody.
22:23
And also, you I mean, that was almost too in time if you were like That's hilarious. That's hilarious.
22:34
I need to have a like a call like a DJ call out like a hook for me all the time.
22:39
Like, you know, Khaled's got like, "Here's another one."
22:40
It'd be like a Mine would be like, "Did you like that?"
22:45
Did did did did did did did did did did did Did you like that?
22:46
It's kind of cocky, but also insecure.
22:48
Like did did did did did Nice, right?
22:51
Did you like that, John Mayer? Did you like that?
22:55
No no no no no no Nice, right? Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. It's good.
22:58
I I mean, I'm just saying.
23:01
I mean, there's definitely possibility going forward for you to throw a few things in there that could be of interest.
23:05
You have two different characteristics.
23:06
You've got the like sit with the artist video version of you.
23:10
You've got party boy version of you.
23:14
I am I am a You're in party boy version right now.
23:16
I'm a I am a I'm a learned party boy. Well, I got another one. do without us. What do I do without us? Nice, right?
23:29
I really just John Mayer But really, did you like that? Did you like that?
23:33
When you're When you're seated, you're a different guy.
23:37
Armchair conversations are not party time. Yeah.
23:40
I'm in an armchair, you're in an armchair. Let's talk about things. got like Yeah.
23:45
You've got a Charlie Rose side and you've got like a Steve Aoki side. Yeah.
23:52
Where's the birthday cake? Buy the cup. Let's get it going. Let's go get one.
23:56
John Mayer is with us live in the studio right now.
24:00
All the modern technology attached.
24:00
We are streaming right now this.
24:01
You can go and see his handsome face on our YouTube site.
24:05
And you're listening to it around the world in over 100 countries with a brand new song. It's a world record. It's called New Light.
24:09
It's a collaboration with No I. D. Mhm.
24:12
Because I know you're deep in the production of your own music and it's not like you just hand the reins over and go, "Right, go do your thing."
24:16
I have very big feet and I'm uh I've just learned over the years that I don't hand over reins super well. Yeah.
24:26
I'm a I'm a I'm a bedroom beast, you know?
24:29
Like I I Do you make beats? I started to. Started to. Using what?
24:34
Uh so, about a year ago, maybe a little earlier, um last year than now, I started working on the MPC.
24:41
So, it had always been an MPC.
24:43
Oh, you went straight to the source. I'm so deep into it now. So good.
24:47
I devoted all my time last year on tour cuz I was on tour all year and I would on my on my days off in the hotel room, I'd just like seriously learn the MPC.
24:56
So, I I I had a every version starting from like 2000. Yeah.
24:58
But, like not the year, but the model.
25:00
And I would I would know how to like put a program together and go ta ta ta ta pa ta ta ta pa pa pa pa pa pa pa and hear that loop.
25:08
And then I would put it away in storage.
25:09
And I got the MPC X and I went, "Okay, I really want to figure this thing out all the way to the to the core of it." And I did.
25:15
Like, I know everything that thing does.
25:19
The then I started going in like plug-in frenzy.
25:21
So, I've got all the instruments.
25:22
Now I hear everyone's records and I know what that is. What that is.
25:26
So, I did a gig like last fall and and something changed in me when I played it.
25:32
I did an acoustic gig at this at this small little place in LA.
25:34
And when it was over, I wasn't down on myself.
25:38
I wasn't like I suck, but I was like, "I need an update."
25:40
Like, it was I thought it was a helpful kind of thing.
25:44
It was a healthy thing to look at and be like, "Oh, I need a uh overhaul kind of in the way that I'm in the way that my vocabulary works musically."
25:52
Because it was too comfortable.
25:52
It felt like it was too easy to some degree. Yeah, for other people. Ah.
25:56
I got off stage and it was the first time like I don't need people to to to fawn over me, but it was the first time that people were like, "That's cool." Yeah. And I went, "Oh." you do. Is that good?
26:06
Yeah, it became it just something about it became a little bit blasé. Mhm.
26:09
So, I got super deep in the MPC and I started making beats for a second, but then I have a whole new bag of tricks that I'm working with other artists now where In what capacity?
26:21
a It's base I'm plugging uh writing. How's that? It's great. You enjoy it?
26:27
It's the time of my life.
26:27
It's a whole new world because I plug my guitar into the MPC.
26:31
I don't even bring guitar amps to the studio.
26:34
Can you tell us a few people you've been in the studio with? Working around.
26:36
Well, I don't I Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you artists who put pictures up of me with them cuz I My rule now is I don't tell people I let them tell you, but I was Me and James Fauntleroy did some stuff with Big Sean. Yeah.
26:50
Um I saw him the other day and he is deep in it. Oh, Fahlberg? No. Oh, Shawn. Yeah, he's fantastic.
26:59
We got to sit there and just go through We must have been there for like 5 hours watching anime, and me and James just like When I say like James and I as a team you just wouldn't think your body as a one-man guy is like coming up with sounds like my sounds right now because it's on the guitar Mhm. they're brand new.
27:19
I will say and I and I don't I don't always have a ton of confidence in myself in terms of the modern music world, but right now like I know what everybody's using, and I'm taking away the virtual instrument part and putting the guitar in. Love that.
27:35
So, now there's things happening.
27:35
Did you ever hear that in "Ill Communication" the Beastie Boys album where Mix Master Mike finally gets hold of MCA, wrist his soul because they're looking for a DJ after hurricane. It's on the album.
27:46
It's a great answering machine message, and it's just so you can hear Mike's voice crack a little bit cuz he's so nervous cuz it's like the Beastie Boys who's returning a call.
27:54
He's like, so he's obviously getting back.
27:56
He's like, "Oh, hey, what's up, Adam? This is Mix Master Mike.
27:59
Um I'm feeling you mean I'm you trying to hold of me, trying to get you back.
28:03
Um and so it'll be good to talk to you.
28:04
I've been working on something.
28:05
I put my turntable through a wah wah pedal.
28:13
It's called "Tweet Scratch".
28:13
And this is the most amazing answering machine Cuz it's pure passion.
28:16
Pure passion, pure one chance. This is my one chance.
28:21
So, do I pick up the phone and do I go like, "Hey, call me back?"
28:23
Or do I go call the tweet scratch.
28:25
And I do literally like I literally blow this guy's mind in process, and he got the gig.
28:31
And it's it's just one of the most beautifully joyful bits of audio you'll hear. That's amazing.
28:34
Oh, and we don't have that anymore voice.
28:36
You know, you're not going to be able to put texts as skits on a record.
28:39
Well, you can use voice notes.
28:41
That's You could use voice notes. That is true.
28:43
You're ever the optimist.
28:45
his turntable through the wah wah pedal, and now you're putting your up is cuz he put his turntable through the wah-wah pedal and now you're putting your guitar through the MPC and doing things.
28:51
Uh I did I did a this track with Russ.
28:55
Uh and I did it on my MPC in my hotel room and I I messaged him the tracks.
28:59
I I messaged him four 2 MB tracks and I was like, "Use this wherever you like."
29:05
And no matter who you are, no matter how successful you've been in your own right, there is nothing like looking at your device and seeing a return message from someone you've just sent an ideal music to.
29:13
Oh, that a hundred When someone's My favorite thing in the world is when anybody sends me a new song to hear.
29:19
I just I look at it and I see the little file and I go, "I can't wait to sit and hear this."
29:23
Not to like go in and grade it or anything, but just to be able to hear what someone just made that Isn't that essence of collaboration when someone gets back to you after you've sent them an idea and you think this is not a John Mayer record, this is somebody else and I'm now going to learn something new about somebody and I'm going to learn something new about myself and I'm going to have an adventure I couldn't have on my own terms. Yeah.
29:41
That that Well, that's exactly I can do more with the guitar and now with the MPC than I'll ever be able to do for myself because my com- my compositional sensibilities are so strict in how I work and what works for me.
29:53
But, if it's for other people, dude, you can have a hundred ideas.
29:57
I can I can pitch a hundred ideas.
29:59
But, for myself, as I go on in my career, by having done certain things, I've canceled them out. I've done them.
30:07
It's getting a little harder as I get older to find things that I truly That's why I love new light cuz I'm like, "Ah, that's new territory for me." Yeah, I love it. It's very weird.
30:15
We're going to play it again a little bit later on.
30:15
Um I could be wrong, but I always I was under the impression that you were sampled in this. Yes. That's a moment.
30:21
This is one of the best moments.
30:23
This Common record is just a classic.
30:27
When you heard this for the first time, was your mind blown? Yes.
30:30
I I I was in the studio with Kanye and Common. I guess it's 2005.
30:32
We all went and saw Ray in the theater. Right. Right.
30:38
Left Ray, went to the studio, and I actually had this line, on the count of three everybody run back to your fantasy.
30:47
The idea was, oh everybody kind of wants to do everybody's living for how everyone else thinks about them, but everybody wants to go to this thing that they're not sure they can um So that was my line.
30:57
I said on the count of three everybody runs back to fantasy.
30:59
And then Kanye goes, go, go, go.
30:59
So he just starts go, oh, go, go.
31:02
The most creative person I've ever met in my life.
31:07
to talk about that in a second. go, go.
31:08
And then I go in the and I pretended that this was basically um a sample that didn't exist. Yeah.
31:15
So the idea is that like that would be some Hall & Oates record where it was like, baby I don't want to go, right?
31:21
Like reverse engineering a sample.
31:21
Baby I don't want Baby don't you go go, right? that. I love that.
31:28
And then you've got to mix it as such the count of That's right.
31:30
Run back to your fantasy. So I Okay. Yeah.
31:59
talk about Kanye the creative? Sure.
32:01
Because you've had that experience and you've been in the room with him and I want your perspective on him as an artist from a creative standpoint because there's a lot of talk about everything else.
32:08
So just for today, just for today, let's just create an environment where we talk about Kanye as a creative entity from inside the room. Easily done.
32:17
Uh I have seen him the first time one of the first times I saw him in the studio he had had a had a laptop in his arm and he went, listen to this, and it was the instrumental of Gold Digger and he rapped a line to it perfect. It was a perfect.
32:27
He I just heard him do stuff So So Kanye's thing is that at least when I I don't want to pretend like I I him super well, but I don't imagine this changes in somebody as a creative. Mhm.
32:39
The the veil that hangs between what you know and what you don't in terms of creating for him is so freaking thin that I understand his excitement artistically.
32:52
Cuz he can pull anything into existence that he wants.
32:55
He is the maybe the greatest summoner of of creative energy.
33:02
So I've just seen him do it. It's a magic trick.
33:04
You know who's really good at it too? It's Chance. Mhm.
33:06
Chance is really good at it.
33:06
And Sean's really good at it, too.
33:10
But Kanye's the best at it.
33:10
In terms of sitting in a room with a thing he doesn't have and going and coming back with a thing within seconds. He's fearless.
33:18
Do you know who I heard is amazing at that who doesn't often put herself out in that light necessarily or that specific light because she has so many strings to her bow and she's so remarkable on so many levels.
33:29
But people talk about Beyoncé's ability in the studio to be able to just zone in on something.
33:35
I would love to see that. And just go, "Bam!" I would love to see it.
33:38
All we do as artists is pretend we have a song.
33:41
And the song we come up with is our fake pretend thing about of what our dreams are based on.
33:49
So it's make-believe, man.
33:52
We're going into a room going, "Today I'm going to pretend I have this."
33:57
Kanye is like the greatest sniper I've ever met.
34:02
He has more confirmed kills than anyone else in terms of going into a room and going, "And today it shall be this." Yeah.
34:11
Now, and I'll leave you here in terms of the the dividing line between talking about the art and talking about the rest of it.
34:16
That is intoxicating and sometimes toxic in terms of Because it's uncontrolled?
34:24
Uh how do you know how can you be sure what is someone's true assessment of a boundary line and what is just another imaginary imposed boundary line.
34:35
You You just are not sure, you know, when you're that close to it.
34:39
creative and close to it, um you're just not sure where the walls are. Mhm.
34:46
And where in the rest of your life you're being spurred on. Go. Literally. Go. Go. Go.
34:54
Um how do you know which are the imaginary wolves and which are the real wolves? It's difficult to know.
35:00
That's where we like leave it off and the rest of it is all conjecture and stuff.
35:04
But when you're that powerful at building the road as you go, Mhm.
35:10
um it's got to be very hard to um to be able to trust what's a real roadblock and what's an imaginary roadblock because your whole life, by the way, when you deal with artists, is breaking through imaginary roadblocks.
35:22
Your parents say Some people's Their parents say you can't do it.
35:24
And you go, "You're wrong. I just did."
35:26
And then the world says, "Ah, we don't think you can make shoes."
35:29
And you go, "You're wrong. I just did."
35:31
And And they're the greatest thing in your life, right?
35:33
And you go, "Well, you can't do that." "You're wrong. I just did."
35:35
It's got to be difficult at that level to be told, "Well, but not that."
35:40
And actually find any reason to believe it. Do you know what I mean? I do.
35:45
And these imaginary roadblocks you talk about, some of them are actually um self-created as well.
35:49
I think that we're all as human beings very capable of creating our own roadblocks for one reason or another, either self-sabotage or or or lack of self-confidence or just anxiety, whatever we put in front of us.
35:59
And I think um you know, you have come out in the past.
36:01
I mean, the first thing you said to me when we got on the record today was, "You know, I've been working hard at at becoming this person that you see today for the last 6 or 7 years."
36:10
And I wonder if before that you feel like you were putting up roadblocks for yourself. If so, why?
36:16
Yes, but look, it's it's a difficult thing to go back and articulate to other people because I'm not sure that I will do the best job of hitting all of the layers to it, but um Maybe you should do a show.
36:31
Maybe you should do a Beats 1 show. You never know.
36:34
I'll let the universe surprise me.
36:36
Um I have a lot of creative energy. Did you like that? John Mayer. Nice, right? No, new one. John Mayer. Was that okay? Was that okay?
36:46
That's basically what my show would be.
36:48
I would I would be so outgoing and I'd be like, "Here's the thing."
36:51
I'd be like Alex Jones on my Beats 1 show, and then I would go home and I'd read one story about the thing that I said, and I would literally pace my house for a day and call six friends.
37:01
Will you just do me a favor?
37:01
Will you just listen back to it, tell me if it's okay. Do I do I have to worry?
37:03
Well, it's a it's an incredibly horrible line to walk as a human being when you're putting yourself that far out front, and then and then desperately trying to get back from it.
37:12
Yeah, I I I call myself a sensitive extrovert, which is the worst combination of you know, of traits because else had said that to me in any other environment, I might have thrown up in my own mouth.
37:23
Oh, you would say it a little too um I'm a sensitive extrovert.
37:27
I'm a Oh, I see what you're saying. It's a little flaw.
37:29
The I have is that I care too much.
37:31
Well, uh so things about me is that I am there for my family.
37:38
But but if you think about like what sex sensitive extrovert means, cuz it's not sensitive introvert, cuz that would be vomit vomit so analyze it, dude.
37:45
I mean, you can't say one is better than the other. They're both tough.
37:48
But at least sensitive introvert is consistent with itself.
37:51
Sensitive extrovert means super outgoing, but can't take any dissenting opinion about the super out That's why I'm not on a show, cuz I know that I can't take the narcissistic No.
38:04
No, it means I think it's really self-aware to be like, "Look, I'm really good at generating ideas."
38:09
And this does pull together what you were talking about before. I'm an idea factory.
38:16
I had to learn over the years what are the honest ideas. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.
38:19
And also This was this also has to do with the time this all happened. This is late 2000s.
38:25
This is when there were 30 paparazzi to each celebrity and down, you know, uh and you weren't sure what the um what the value was of people misunderstanding you.
38:36
At this point, if someone gets me wrong, I look at it any day.
38:39
I look at Twitter, it'd take me 5 seconds to find someone who has me wrong. I go, "All right." Back then Yeah.
38:45
The glare it made sense, Zane, to want to fix it, right?
38:49
So, if someone in your life said, "Zane, you were at the party.
38:53
You were at Sarah's party Friday night and you know that guy Mark you met on the balcony?
38:58
Well, apparently you said something to piss him off."
39:00
You would be like, "Well, get me Mark. Yeah. Let me talk to Mark." this down.
39:04
Let me It's obviously a misunderstanding. Let me talk to Mark.
39:07
Well, it's like that times a million, right? Yeah.
39:11
And it the thing that messed my head up was my attempt to reset things.
39:15
Like, if you just go like, "Oh, this sucks."
39:18
and you just cry a little bit or something, you go like, "Oh, man, I really hate the the real mistake is when you go like, "I shall show no fear and I will outsmart this." You know what I mean? Or outrun it. Well, or outrun it.
39:30
And I think outrunning is probably better than trying to outsmart it.
39:35
And and the people who try and outsmart it, they learn something eventually about it, but it's it it it it does have a cost when I I mean, I look back on things in my life, I'm like, I should have just been like, "That sucks." Yeah.
39:47
But instead, I tried to develop a more uh I don't know, like a bigger monster than I thought was trying to eat me.
39:55
Did you need help getting out of that?
39:55
I mean, did you did you you use therapy?
39:57
I mean, I've done that and things like that to try and kind of get a better understanding of who you are in relation to who you became? Sure.
40:04
Also, you just grow up and, you know, you learn that the things you were scared of eating you alive didn't even didn't even have teeth.
40:12
You're going to be all right.
40:13
about artists now who are able to walk the line in their own deliberate manner.
40:17
and um I and we don't even really know the reasons why.
40:19
And I think about the ones who do it very, very well.
40:21
Um we don't know if it's anxiety driving that, if it's overconfidence driving that, if it's over overwhelming ability, or perhaps a lack of understanding of who they truly are.
40:29
All we know is that we did there are very clear fence posts. Mhm.
40:33
And when they come into those fence posts, which is where we see them, it is very much by design.
40:37
And I love that development because I feel it's it's more in line with the with the controlled artistic thinking, not everyone else is getting involved.
40:44
And I think about artists who are doing it.
40:47
Now you talked about Chance. Chance is so deliberate.
40:48
And I think the master of it right now is Frank.
40:50
And Frank comes out when Frank wants to come out, and he doesn't get pushed out.
40:57
Well, I think in in in I think there those two guys specifically are really good for artists everywhere because when you see an artist being that successful doing it that way, it just sets a precedent so that everybody can be a little more open and easy about what they want to create. Mhm.
41:15
You know who was the master of that? Was Bowie as well. Was he? Bowie was incredible.
41:19
big big Bowie blind spot for me.
41:19
Do you have Do you have any music blind spots?
41:23
Is there a band you go, "Yeah, I couldn't carry a conversation about that band."
41:26
Yeah, there were definitely a few of them.
41:28
I mean, I've sort of exposed to a lot of music over my life, so even if I'm not overly passionate about, I sort of have some kind of basis of understanding.
41:33
But the other day I had this moment where a couple of friends of mine had always said, "You've never ever really had a Tom Waits moment." Mhm.
41:39
And you really should because this guy is like a real one, and you don't want to go through your life and not really have had that experience.
41:45
And so what I did was, not to sound like I'm on message, but I actually utilized the idea of streaming, and I just dived in I just dived in. Yeah.
41:52
And I didn't know where I was going to end up.
41:53
And 3 hours later I was like, "All right, I get this." Good for you. I understand this.
41:56
But it's taken me time, and there are definitely artists like that.
41:58
Yeah, I mean Dylan Bob Dylan is someone who I might greatly in the moments that I have absorbed, but how where do you even begin with Dylan to absorb it all?
42:04
A friend of mine is actually Richard is going through every single album one by one on vinyl at chronological into Dylan in 2010. Deep into Dylan.
42:14
And um Like every album Dylan? Every album. Every album. That's a year.
42:19
Once you catch it, you catch it though.
42:20
Like same thing with the Grateful Dead.
42:22
Once you catch it, you catch it.
42:22
You just have to wait for like um some some point of entry.
42:27
You just pick up a point of entry.
42:29
And the Dylan thing is like Yeah, it's just Well, look.
42:30
Uh what's what's what's the through line between like Tom Waits, Dylan, and the Grateful Dead?
42:36
Is that there is a sonic uh There's a little bit of a sonic of friction asteroid field sonically.
42:45
When you first hear it Yeah, things bouncing against the shine. It doesn't come to you. Yeah, it's true. Right?
42:50
So, there So, you have to move through it.
42:51
And but once you move through it and you understand the language of it, then you then it's like you've broken through.
43:00
Frank is like that and why I love him so much is because more and more people have identified that within him.
43:03
He is not an easy artist to love on paper.
43:05
If you think about the music he makes.
43:08
Yeah, there are huge classic songs, Channel Orange, and he's had these big moments and everything else.
43:10
But, you know, I would say Blonde is one of those records that when people first heard it, they were like, "Oh, I kind of want a Channel Orange part two."
43:16
And then after like a month, I mean, I got it pretty much immediately, but a lot of my friends were like, "Oh, this is so much better."
43:22
And because it was so much deeper in that friction you talk about, that asteroid field. There you go.
43:27
It drew you in and it was it was a far deeper experience to me. That's true.
43:31
Um and Pyramids, which I just heard a couple weeks ago, I just put it on like three times in a row. and odd. It's just crazy.
43:36
Pyramids is the of just Everybody people are trying to make records based off one part of Pyramids.
43:47
Pyramids is a mothership that blocks out the sun in the sky.
43:49
And people people are making records just trying to take one piece.
43:55
It's like it it's like it's like a broken alien ship and people are trying to find technology from it.
43:59
Be like, "Oh, we figured out time travel from this tiny little wire."
44:03
It like everybody wants to make pyramids.
44:08
Pyramids is the is and you could say pyramids is like Coldplay clocks was in the early 2000's where it spawns an entire generation of songwriters.
44:19
Yeah, all these things are proof that you just do your best do what moves you and don't worry about what other people have to say because when you get to this age the great thing about being 40 is that you have seen the lifespan of people's opinion.
44:41
What you're 24 to what you're saying to young artists to some degree is if you get through the other side and you keep your head on and your hands steady and you try and stay true to yourself despite the left and the rights you will come out the other end with a bit deeper understanding of yourself and life will make sense.
44:55
100% except you just said it and better than I ever would because it's not loaded with weird metaphors people don't understand.
45:03
100% like I was never the biggest thing of any year and I'll never be the biggest thing of any year.
45:08
But what I have looking back on it now is like this catalog like this wine cellar or something you know, it's like I money balled like having a catalog like slowly going like well, I know this isn't as cool as whatever is cool in 2007. preoccupied with cool?
45:22
That's the second or third time we've spoken where you've gone like I struggle with the idea of where I fit into modern music cool this this and this.
45:28
That's the thing for you.
45:29
Good question because I am sort of an orphan that way where nobody ever claimed me.
45:34
So no one was ever like he's our guy which is actually great.
45:39
Like Coachella like Coachella wouldn't have me but it doesn't mean they hate me they just go he's not us and like Spin magazine isn't like he's us and Rolling Stone isn't like he's us your mind you were thinking like in terms of who you loved and who you influenced it was like knowing that you had the if you were invited to the party you would make so many friends immediately, but you can't get into the room.
46:04
I used to feel that way, but now I feel like thank god I didn't get in the room.
46:08
Um well, the old bouncers are gone.
46:11
You know, um and and now it's about what I do.
46:14
And I and I don't have any proof that I wouldn't end up playing Coachella at this point going forward.
46:17
It's It's I really feel like everything's so wide open right now for me.
46:21
Like I feel like I have like I said earlier, like I have selectively retired from certain things.
46:28
I've retired from the idea that this song you hear is going to make me a star, a bigger star, and that it's going to be It's going to I'm going to win a record of the year and a song I don't I think that's up to other people now, man.
46:41
Like and and I've really worked on watching like when I see the Childish Gambino video, that's really important for me as an artist to be 100% go go go go go. Yes, that's amazing. I love it.
46:56
And not be a guy who's like, "Well, I would like I No." Yeah.
46:59
Like you've had that run. Mhm.
47:03
It's time for other people to have that run.
47:06
What's interesting though is that Donald as an artist knows speaking to someone about this the other day, and I feel confident talking about this because it ended up in a in a in a in a short kind of breakdown in Rolling Stone.
47:13
Um Donald came out from a place where he was misunderstood for a very long time as an artist.
47:18
And I think he had a similar feeling to him.
47:19
I And I've spoken to him about this, man.
47:21
You know, when I used to interview him, there's interviews I've done back at Radio 1 where he would be just like almost a little bit off about how he was perceived amongst certain or you know, audiences, fan bases, scenes. He was not into it.
47:32
And it's tough, I think, to absorb people at that point in their career.
47:36
It's And also it's also tough. sides.
47:38
It's not just hard on him.
47:38
It's hard on the audience to know where you fit with a polymath like Donald Glover.
47:43
Well, so here's the And especially And polymaths are always the hardest to sort of negotiate this stuff because the world, in terms of articulating your ideas to the world, is really sort of a straw.
47:54
And polymaths are like thick smoothies. Yes. Yes. So it's much thicker.
47:57
It's very hard to get through the straw.
48:02
And what I've learned now for me is how to be more salient, direct, focused.
48:07
Stand up has has helped me with that. Forget the setup, man. Bop, that's the point. Move on. Why is it okay?
48:12
So just let's clear this up.
48:14
You and Dave Chappelle have known each other for a long time and been friends for some time.
48:16
But now that it takes to it takes the stage once in a while and you guys do these tours and things and have fun.
48:21
It sounds like it's from the basis of you wanting to hang out.
48:24
Ultimately on stage it comes across like that.
48:26
But from your perspective, what is it? Why is it? How did it happen?
48:29
And and what is the future of this?
48:31
Uh the future is that we'll just keep doing it.
48:32
Every time we do a run of shows, we learn more about it and it develops more.
48:36
Um It really is about the crossover between he and I where he's a comic who thinks like a musician and I'm a musician who at least respects, if I don't think like a comic, I at least respect the geometry of the thing of a comic.
48:51
I just don't think there's enough um There's There's not enough little articulatable joints in music all the time.
49:00
Like if you play a song You write a song, you you know, you spend a few months writing a song, you put it out, you do the Comics can just pop pop pop pop.
49:08
Yeah, there's a defined structure within that song and architecture. They're blues men. They're blues, right?
49:12
You you take blues, which is like this it's all about the idiom and then anyone can play with anybody if you play the blues.
49:20
Uh the the guy who loves blue It really is like the guy who loves blues in me loves comedy because Diddy and company have more in common with what you're doing within comedy in some regards because of the fact that you can kind of go off and and and move things around.
49:33
Yeah, I I Again, it goes with like wanting to just get out of this idea that you make something and then you go work it for 2 years.
49:39
I just 1 2 3 4 You know, like I've been there.
49:43
Like I've I've gone to the other countries and they go, "You're going to be huge here."
49:47
I've flown to Germany for the day.
49:51
You know, they go, "You're going to get biggest TV show in Germany."
49:52
And And like And that stuff is great, but I've just the idea of making one thing and spending two years going to push it, I'm just more excited by the fact that I can do anything today.
50:04
What have you learned about comedy by being sharing a stage with Dave Chappelle?
50:09
Because he is without a doubt on on his day the the master of it.
50:12
That I only have to make people laugh twice for people to be like, "He's funny."
50:17
Like uh my ability to shut up is stellar now.
50:23
Oh, dude, your silent game is so strong on that stage.
50:26
My shut up game is incredible. Fantastic. Seriously.
50:28
And I love the fact that you and Chappelle both sort of totally comfortable despite how the audience feels to bask sunbathe in silence. Uh-huh.
50:37
Cuz something you just trust that something's going to hit.
50:39
It It's all really about never getting discouraged. I've learned that now.
50:45
Like, we can go back to anything that we talked about and one of the key factors in everything is just not being discouraged.
50:52
Like, I'm making beats now for people and the only difference between my beats now and like 6 months ago is that I'm not discouraged by them. Like, I have confidence.
51:04
Like, when you listen to other people's beats, you're like, "Well, I could have done that."
51:06
And the answer is like, "Yeah, but you wouldn't have had the confidence to play that for somebody."
51:11
And also the thing about beats too is, man, is it's a reduction It's a It's a reduction process.
51:14
A lot of people think that they can just get night away, put some snaps on and make it bump.
51:17
You got to put a lot of things on there, mix accordingly, pull these things off, and then everything comes along.
51:23
swing a high hat, it's like W Hotel check-in music.
51:25
Like, you know how many You know how many You know how many like I went, "Oh, this is great."
51:29
And I would go And it sounded like you left your TV on when you checked in a hotel.
51:35
And I would just I would make a beat and I'd go, "Good. Good."
51:37
And I'd be like, "You Where's the Where's the explosion sound effect? Yeah, you screwed it up. You bonked it." Yeah. Yeah.
51:45
Uh And then I started learning listening to other people's beats and stuff.
51:49
I'd be like, "Oh, I was going three times more intricate than this.
51:54
You just have to leave room for other things to happen."
51:57
I'm having so much fun having this conversation and I completely forgot that we actually laid out a couple of neatly put instruments besides you.
52:01
Um when you draw for an instrument and this is an introduction to do so, do you draw for the electric or draw for the acoustic? It depends.
52:08
Normally I pick up the electric, but yesterday I played acoustic all day in the studio. Just cuz.
52:16
Um It'll pull a song out faster.
52:18
It'll an acoustic is a song calculator.
52:22
It's just a just a butterfly net.
52:24
Yeah, for sure, because it rings different and it kind of the openness of the chords and everything you can play is a different Yeah, and it's not the world's most fantastic sonic experience every time and it's you know, they say like a good song you're you should you should be able to play it on an acoustic guitar and have it still be there.
52:40
Well, it's sort of that but backwards.
52:41
So, I just start If it's If it If the idea works on an acoustic guitar, I'm like, "Ooh, that's an idea."
52:47
Like from this point forward whenever I'll work with anybody and I've learned it in myself, it's like we're not going to make loops first.
52:53
It's just a It's a wonderful way to waste time.
52:55
It If you don't go straight to the idea, it's in your mouth. It's in your brain.
52:59
It's not So, we're in process right now, you and I and you would reach for a guitar as as you do right now and and you would sit there and we I'll pick up the guitar.
53:11
You pick up the guitar and and your immediate feeling would be to do what?
53:16
Well, I don't always do it because it's it's it requires a stupid brave bravery all the time, but you could sit here all day.
53:30
You can go, "Okay, maybe that's something."
53:31
But, if you don't go, "Sunlight's beating on the corners of the walls and I'm a Mr. Know-It-All. Heaven calls. Get yourself right. Get yourself right now.
53:43
If you're not If you're not Ouija boarding immediately, you don't You're wasting time.
53:49
You're such a weirdo, man, because on the one hand, you know, you have this really very aware part of who you are in terms of being able to you you know, analyze and move things through and and construct and process, which is what all human beings do, but you seem super super hyper aware of it. Yes.
54:04
And yet in process like that, you're like a different human being. Yes.
54:08
You You just go into When will we get out? Get on. Get on. Get on.
54:12
And just stare at the corner of the wall.
54:15
Stare at the corner of the wall.
54:17
Try to get it going on, but I can't corner.
54:24
You just keep going until you get something.
54:29
And maybe I'm a little bit shy.
54:29
Maybe someday I'll tell you why. Because I don't know.
54:39
It's all stuff, but you got to keep forcing it, forcing it, forcing it.
54:41
Go get it from the universe. You can't rehearse. You're on stage now.
54:46
And everybody's listening to thoughts coming out of my mind.
54:51
But I won't be scared cuz I do it for a living. It's not a taking. It's a giving.
54:58
Tell me why do you still want to hear me sing?
55:06
Doesn't matter And if you can get fearless, fearless, fearless.
55:07
Fearless, fearless, fearless. It's hard to do.
55:10
Yet you said a while back that there were moments when you would listen back to songs and your stomach would churn.
55:14
You would feel that sense of anxiety about it.
55:16
Because it was so honest.
55:16
It was I had this one song.
55:18
It was called You're Going to Live Forever in Me.
55:20
And it was still I play for people and I have to A great big bang and dinosaurs.
55:27
Fiery rain and meteor It's like a really like highly composed stuff.
55:34
But for me like I'm I'm experimenting and experiencing um with and the uh experiment experimenting with and experiencing like having a good time having a resolved fun good time and using music as a form of rhythmic celebration and not necessarily using music as a tool for uh finding out answers or or deep dives into the subconscious, which I did for a really really long time and that the essence of feeling it? Yeah.
56:11
I mean, new light, if you look at the lyrics, like it's pretty like there's some deep stuff happening and it's my appeal to somebody to be like He dressed it up in fancy clothes, but I don't think it's any different to some of the deepest Rick Rubin you've done.
56:25
It's it just it just it's just dressed a bit.
56:27
Yeah, it's dressed a little Well, exactly, right?
56:28
So, it's That's what I learned last year when I played and and like Chance came out to see this show and Shawn Mendes came out to see this show and I as I was playing, I was like, "Oh, this is slightly outdated what I'm doing."
56:42
So, that's why I wanted to work with No I. D.
56:43
and that's why I want to work with, you know, as many people as I can to add that vocabulary, but it's still my sensibilities.
56:51
you aware of the fact that when I talk to Shawn or I talk to Ed, they speak about you and the work that you do with them in collaboration in such a hallowed spirit?
56:57
I don't want to put them on the spot, but No, I love I mean, they really do.
56:59
They hold you and you're at a point now where, you know, it's it's goat status for certain songwriters and artists who are having considerable amounts of success and they see the way you've lived your life.
57:09
And but primarily, it's through the music that you've made.
57:11
Can you make peace with that? Oh, yeah.
57:14
Well, what what what why would I want it any other way?
57:18
Because as you get to a certain point in your life watching other young stars start to refer to you in that way, ego is a funny friend.
57:24
Oh, no, I'm fine with that.
57:24
My My parents were teachers. I have that in my blood.
57:28
Also, I'm beginning the middle of my career, you know, um and there's a lot of things, my friend, that time has taken care of that I thought I was going to have to do.
57:40
And there are things that I didn't even know were going to take place that when when you when you're coming up you look at the world like, well, this is everybody.
57:49
I got to make my peers like me, got to make the people who are you know, going to shows go to my show, but then as you keep doing that, they make new people.
57:59
And as they make new people, certain things that went along with your music start to fall away.
58:05
And as people get married, people who called you a douchebag move on.
58:08
They get married and they have kids and they think about other things. Maybe I should move.
58:13
Two kids in a swimming pool. Maybe Is that a song?
58:16
That's Siegfried I'm going to play in a minute by Frank Ocean, which to me, even though you didn't write it, sums up everything we've kind of talked about.
58:22
And then at the end of it, he goes, "By the way, it's not really about me. It's about a friend."
58:24
It's the biggest like dick move ever and I love him for it.
58:26
He just breaks your heart, draws you in, makes you feel this way, and then goes, "By the way, it's not even about me." He's a wizard.
58:35
He's just like, "I look at the puppets."
58:37
He's like, it's like it's like the uh the prestige. Pop up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:40
I I think that's actually that's actually probably a very good assessment of how he works.
58:45
know, but deep down it's magic.
58:45
He's He's just not sure he wants you to think it's magic.
58:48
Uh so like, "What are you doing, bro?"
58:50
You know what You know what the thing is is like uh how do I say this? Say it.
58:54
Only Frank can do it and I would like other people to understand that. That's so true. And just let him do it. true.
59:03
But the problem with being that influential is you can't control who you influence. I know.
59:07
The other thing I well, like Prince was the man.
59:12
mayors out there as well. Let's be really honest. I don't You know what?
59:15
But maybe a whack mayor is a record away from being their own thing.
59:17
But like Prince was the man, but remember like there were people who like also tried to be Prince. Still. You know what I mean? Still.
59:25
But we the one thing I wanted to touch on and one of the hardest things to figure out and navigate as you're an artist is how do you reconcile your influences and the music you love with the music you make? Say that again.
59:39
How do you reconcile the music you love with the music you make? Oof.
59:42
It's really, really hard.
59:42
That's the essence of wanting to get in that room one It's really hard.
59:46
Like I This is the question.
59:48
This is the cool question. Like Mhm. That's it.
59:50
I am into cooler stuff than I am cool. Like I just know that.
59:57
But it's really hard to sit in a car and go ooh, that's cool. Identify it.
1:00:00
When we say cool, I don't mean like Fonzie cool.
1:00:05
I mean just like interesting, compelling, you know, inspiring. Could be inspiring.
1:00:11
Where is the line to where you go, well, I don't do that?
1:00:13
And and I love that the world right now is so open to where you go, oh, give me one like that.
1:00:19
But I Sometimes I think that maybe we're we're so artists are so hell-bent on like doing that thing that they forget like, no, you get to be you.
1:00:31
Like I now learn that I shouldn't This goes again goes back like, I love 4:44, but I don't have any business going like, let me add it. No, no, no. No, bring it to me. Bring it to me. Bring me that.
1:00:42
Um so, I've learned as I go like Well, because Jay-Z understood the same thing. That's right.
1:00:48
that no matter how many bangers that you can achieve, no matter how many hit records you can make, no matter how cool you are, how many businesses you can form.
1:00:55
Right now, at this moment in his time, not to speak for him, to speak for the album, which he put it all on the album, so I can safely speak about the content of the album.
1:01:01
I need to say this because this is real life.
1:01:04
And if I don't say it, it's going to affect my real life.
1:01:07
And number two, hip-hop really has not had a Bob Dylan or a Marvin Gaye hear my dear or a Neil Young moment, which doesn't matter about chasing the hits.
1:01:16
It's about a moment in time for a person.
1:01:18
And if you get it, you get it.
1:01:20
If you don't, you don't, but hip-hop's got to grow up. Amazing. Honestly. That's what 4:44 is.
1:01:26
At a certain age, and this is a good thing, you say to yourself, if I want to be something different, Mhm.
1:01:34
I'll have to wait till my next life.
1:01:37
You know, you you begin to say, "Oh, I'll never do that."
1:01:40
You know how badly I would love to be a baby band at Coachella in a 15-passenger van.
1:01:47
You got to get over this Coachella buzz, man. It's not that good. Ah.
1:01:49
Well, I'm using it but you know how much I would it's Mount Ethos. You know what I mean?
1:01:55
I still had it in 2010 when I was when I got into Dylan and I went, "Oh, I'm not I I've got to have my beginning years again.
1:02:00
I've got to have my 1962 Greenwich Village. I got to go."
1:02:04
It's hard to tell yourself where the hunger needs to just go away.
1:02:10
And where it doesn't and where it shouldn't.
1:02:11
And for me, I go, "Look, if and you're right about the Coachella thing.
1:02:15
I'm I'm being a little lazy in the in the reference to it, but you go to a certain point like, "Hey, man, I get to be me for the rest of my life. That's great."
1:02:22
The idea of my life being an ongoing cultivation of interesting ideas of from any direction and being any personality and any You go, "Well, get them next lifetime on that, you know?"
1:02:35
But you but we live in a time right now where there is more emphasis on that than ever before because the amount of information and inspiration and culture and identity and fashion and music and things flying at kids.
1:02:44
And I'm talking about kids. Like I have kids.
1:02:49
Kids are just constantly evolving and searching all the time as well they should, but I've never seen it at a rate where it almost feels like that kind of thing where you morph at such a rapid, you know, pace. It's a lot.
1:02:57
And I was saying even Instagram is getting a little rough for me because it's The one thing I was saying social media has a problem with is like redundancy. Mhm.
1:03:05
And we have a problem accounting for seeing one person's ambition but multiplied by a hundred every morning.
1:03:13
Oh, dude, it is like the most beautiful beautiful and toxic experience to be drawn into other people's lives and yet constantly have it reflect on your own sense of achievement. It's very very hard.
1:03:25
is a very dangerous dance. very dangerous dance.
1:03:27
It's a very dangerous dance.
1:03:29
And this is where we get into then needing to have this um anything needing to have anything need to have a every once in a while someone put up a motivational post saying like I did the other day. What did it say?
1:03:41
It was just to leave like just you do your thing.
1:03:43
Don't worry about this this um feeling of everyone else's ambition drowning you out.
1:03:50
I love the idea that that modern-day motivation has become pop music.
1:03:52
Um you know, I when I was going through a tough time in my life and I was really deep in therapy and I was getting the tools, you know, I'd absolutely referred to some of those writers and some of those public speakers, you know, Eckhart's whole, Tony Robbins, people who were able to sort of put perspective around things.
1:04:07
But that felt like a niche environment for a long time.
1:04:09
It felt almost like a cult.
1:04:10
And when you would talk about it with people, they'd just be like, "Oh god, what's wrong with you?"
1:04:13
And now that is pop music.
1:04:14
It is pop music and it is converse It is casual conversation.
1:04:18
And what's really interesting and we could get we could get um really restricting intellectually anytime we want on this and become sort of um haughty about it, but the one thing that motivation, as I see it now, is missing, the one strain, it's the only thing it's missing, is the self-reflection as to whether or not you're any good at the thing.
1:04:39
Like I'm seeing a lot of motivation about you following your passion, but I'm not seeing any critical thought to what that is or how to be better at that.
1:04:51
So, really the product is passion and that's strange to me.
1:04:56
It's Because my product is sitting in a room.
1:04:58
My product growing up was sitting in a room for 6 hours a day.
1:05:03
was the actual food for that.
1:05:03
It wasn't the end result.
1:05:07
Yeah, the real product Passion is ambiguous, you're right.
1:05:09
Passion is an ambiguous Like like you can have it right now.
1:05:14
That's That's so so So this is why it works everybody.
1:05:16
The person looking in on the Instagram can get something right now and the person sharing the motivation can get something right now, which is that person going, "Oh, I got something from that."
1:05:25
So But isn't that just buying something as opposed to buying into it?
1:05:29
And there's a fundamental difference. Yeah, and you know what?
1:05:32
I trust people to eventually figure things out and go, "Oh, this isn't working for me."
1:05:36
I mean, just even for me personally, I've had enough of the group ambition game.
1:05:41
And I to the point where I don't even know how hard I want to push this record, but I want everyone to hear it.
1:05:49
But I don't know that I want to put on my Instagram stories like the the countries it's number probably eight in, but I don't know that I want to put my reviews up and I every day I want to tell people to swipe up for more.
1:06:03
with you and it's been like I've I've had a problem with this my whole my whole kind of professional and I guess personal life, which is how far do you promote yourself in order to achieve?
1:06:11
And then I can And by the way, in the UK By the way, in London in the UK when I lived in the UK, that's totally fine.
1:06:18
Like it's actually kind of good for you to check yourself and be able to very deliberately place ambition and turn flick that switch when you want. That's the truth.
1:06:26
That's my experience there of living there in nearly 18 years.
1:06:28
Coming to a place like Los Angeles, what are you doing?
1:06:31
Why aren't you What are you doing?
1:06:34
What do you mean you want to appropriately promote yourself?
1:06:35
What do those words even mean together?
1:06:38
Well, the so so the problem with that Yeah, but but but but but listen, you're saying that there's constant promotion happening here. Constantly.
1:06:47
But that's people are doing what is around them.
1:06:49
Like I'm I'm an apologist for people.
1:06:51
Like I'm an apologist for human beings.
1:06:52
Like if you don't you can't be an apologist for human beings and you have no hope for the world, right?
1:06:57
Like what's our sign are you? Libra. Oh, man.
1:06:58
But we But we work backwards from people have to be We have to trust people.
1:07:03
We have to have hope for people, right?
1:07:04
Like they've just been told they've just By the way, everybody's been given an entire full branding suite.
1:07:11
Everybody has been given, for free, all of the inner workings of a marketing company.
1:07:17
You now have all of the assets to brand whatever it is you like.
1:07:22
And I say, in defense of the people, why would you expect them to not eat all their Halloween candy on November 1st?
1:07:31
You're going to tell people, "Here's your ability to publish anything.
1:07:35
You can make an album, a cover, a webpage, a name, a website, a Shopify page, but not yet. Not until you're great." You can't do that. I defend people. The tools are there.
1:07:45
I would have done the same thing.
1:07:47
I'm glad that I had to play blues guitar along with a little Casio keyboard literally going dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum You have no idea.
1:07:54
You created a court of law where there wasn't one.
1:07:57
You've literally walked into an imaginary court of law and gone, "Now, I may not be some big-time fancy lawyer or nothing, but I But my legal colleague over HERE HAS A PROBLEM WITH THE WAY PEOPLE are promoting themselves on the social media.
1:08:10
NOW, I NOW, NOW, NOW, I MAY NOT BE SOME NO, NO. I IDENTICAL.
1:08:16
NOW, I want to I want to like I want to pick up on that real quick, cuz I actually want to I I'm on the same side as you.
1:08:20
I just think that we're entering into a time where that playbook, I call it the playbook, Mhm.
1:08:27
It used to just be tools to self-promote and to push and push and push and push, and that's fine.
1:08:30
Kids should be allowed to explore their passions.
1:08:34
And if you have all these things at your disposal, as long as it's monitored and done appropriately, they should be allowed to And Gary Vaynerchuk told me that, cuz I was like, "I don't want to let my kids go and put his beats up on SoundCloud." He's like, "Why?" I love Gary.
1:08:45
I I really legitimately He's a friend of mine, and I have discovered a what I consider a flaw in his sermon. Go ahead.
1:08:53
Which is that it it doesn't account for the actual work in what the product is.
1:08:59
It has a It has a blind spot for what the thing is. Mhm.
1:09:02
Is it uh have you have you developed it enough?
1:09:04
That you you could only the the Gary V uh idea works really well if you're an Instagram influencer.
1:09:12
It works really good if your product is not empirical.
1:09:17
If your product doesn't live in any uh critically accountable sort of a way.
1:09:22
So, yeah, his his thing is get out there and get it done. too Monday motivation?
1:09:28
Well, I don't What's Monday mo Yeah.
1:09:30
Yeah, just just the idea of a hashtag Monday motivation.
1:09:32
Like let's get out there guys and go get it done.
1:09:34
Well, his ideas are By the way, his ideas are brilliant. He's a genius. He's a genius.
1:09:39
It's just that there's one soft the one uncooked area of it, which is is the thing you're doing are you practiced enough? Mhm. Have you learned enough?
1:09:50
And I understand the defense to that is probably well, I don't know that and I can't speak to the world.
1:09:56
Well, no, what it is is it's it's it's in a it's in a different order, right?
1:09:58
And not I'm getting beyond Gary now into what into what my kids how my I don't want to you know, bring my kids up to my mom.
1:10:03
But but this is the thing for me, right?
1:10:05
We try to encourage our children to go ahead and and and put the work in.
1:10:07
It's very important to this day that they apply themselves to things that they care about.
1:10:12
But there is as you said before all these things that are already there that they can use.
1:10:15
And so and I actually saw this for the first time on MySpace.
1:10:19
That's how far back it started for me cuz I would see artists go and put a song up, put a picture up.
1:10:22
The picture looked really great.
1:10:23
The song sounded half decent and they were a band that played no shows.
1:10:27
Yo, I see Twitter pages where the Twitter header looks like it's a million dollar record and the person has like 145 followers. Right. So So, okay.
1:10:34
Okay, let's flip that now and put that into into society right now and where we're at.
1:10:38
And this is the thing that gives me real hope.
1:10:40
Getting back to the idea of hope is that I'm seeing if if if trolling has reached its natural conclusion because the highest troll is the highest human being, Mhm.
1:10:50
then where do we go from there?
1:10:54
You start to go back down the wave and you start to take a look at what's important.
1:10:57
And I'm seeing kids starting to now create playbooks on how they are inspired, how they speak, how they communicate, what they support.
1:11:07
You know where this dovetails into my life?
1:11:08
They want They want songs.
1:11:08
They want crafted They want songs. They want quotes. They want quotes.
1:11:15
They want recommendations.
1:11:16
They want pieces of video that say something. They want town halls. They want debates.
1:11:23
and you and you My kid was more excited about the debate this year than he was anything else he did in school.
1:11:26
The Okay, so you see this in the the Parkland high school kids. Correct. These kids, man.
1:11:33
You take all your millennial complaints and you throw them out the window.
1:11:39
that they have have have have They have They have been thrust into an environment where in order to be themselves and speak their minds, they've had to take take on extraordinary pressure. True.
1:11:52
But they've also proven They've proven that they have been paying attention and that they cannot be fooled and that they have they they value honesty and integrity and they they value reason. Yes.
1:12:02
And you know what's amazing is that that that, you know, beyond what they will achieve over time in terms of their goals, their influence now will be timeless. Will be timeless.
1:12:16
But their ability to be influenced by the right things, none of us saw it coming.
1:12:20
So, as you and I were debating in a thoughtful way 5 years ago, and we thought it wasn't going to go anywhere.
1:12:28
by the way, everybody, about 5 years ago.
1:12:29
I mean, the best time, by the way.
1:12:31
I mean, I don't even care.
1:12:31
Well, we felt like So, our generation started to get a little forlorn because we thought none of this is taking. Yeah. But it was. Yeah. Yeah. They were watching it.
1:12:38
It was catching They were getting it. Yeah.
1:12:41
Even if they didn't like it, it caught and they used it to drive them in a different direction. They were getting it.
1:12:44
They I've seen 17-year-olds now say, "Yeah, who cares about that?
1:12:49
That's just phony outrage. This is what matters." Yeah. Oh man, this is amazing.
1:12:51
So, you take every thought you had about this idea that it was going to be an onward sort of degradation of intelligence. Nope. Nope.
1:13:01
So, where does this all What does this What does this all lead to as a thesis?
1:13:05
Is that it was all okay in this one sense, that when you're given a new technology the human instinct is to find every possible way you can implement it, get tired of it, and then only use it for what it is best used for.
1:13:19
For instance, the telephone. Mhm.
1:13:21
You know, the party lines.
1:13:23
We used to have a thing where you could call up and get jokes.
1:13:28
Used to call up and get time and temperature.
1:13:29
Call up and do group chats and this and that and that.
1:13:32
We'd wait on the phone to talk to the radio station and get it Well, now we use it for I'm 5 late. See you later. Bye. Not even. Yeah.
1:13:40
So, it is the right you actually speak on the phone? I don't even know.
1:13:44
I mean, if I wasn't at work, I would just It's just texts.
1:13:45
There's like four or five people I talk to every day.
1:13:48
But, for the most part, like when you move in, you figure out what something does.
1:13:51
Like when you get a new Christmas present, you sit there, you play with it till you go, "Okay, that's what it does."
1:13:55
And then you put it away till the next time you need it.
1:13:57
So, you're right with the trolls and da da da da and outrage.
1:14:03
Where it needs to find a new, I feel like it needs to find a new little fulcrum point is how much personal peer-to-peer promotional branding, marketing, ambition how much swiping up for more is enough swiping up for more.
1:14:19
And and and and no one is at fault, but something happens when you get into multiples of it.
1:14:26
This is the problem with Twitter.
1:14:28
This is why I'm off Twitter.
1:14:29
I want to hear someone's point of view about something Trump said or or a policy change that's being floated, but I don't want to reinjure myself 200 times with a point of view that is giving my brain the sensation that this is something new I need to know when all it is is a multiple of the same idea.
1:14:48
What it does is it creates early fatigue for a lot of things that shouldn't be fatiguing that early.
1:14:53
And really if we're getting crazy about it, it all comes down to nomenclature.
1:14:57
It all comes down to hashtag word creation, verbage creation.
1:15:03
It gets created on a Friday and it gets memed on a Monday and it's and it's gone. on the glossary. Yeah. Pretty sure.
1:15:10
So Yeah, I do believe it's going to find its f- its center balance.
1:15:14
Going to find its believe that e- even if we believe that it's not in our hands entirely, it's now with the generation who know more more about these and how to use the information in the technology to spread it than ever before.
1:15:30
They're not afraid of it.
1:15:30
Like when social media came along, I was like, "I don't even know how to use this thing.
1:15:35
Like what How far do I What do I say? How do I use it?" They've grown up in it.
1:15:39
They know what to do with it.
1:15:39
And now I really get a sense, bringing it back to that positivity, that optimism. Yep.
1:15:44
They're starting to use it in the right way.
1:15:47
Uh I think people care about what they do more than they ever have.
1:15:51
It's everyone's getting over the way it gets seen and they're back into what the thing is. And that's exciting.
1:15:58
That's why I'm having more fun making music now than I've ever had in my life.
1:16:01
people had to own John Mayer then they've worked out what they John Mayer is for and now they use John Mayer the right way. I can dig it.
1:16:10
And I use it the right way now.
1:16:12
Okay, now I know what my brain does. Better be honest. a show. I don't know. We'll see. You're doing a show. We'll see.
1:16:19
The new song is currently on Apple Music. Stream it.
1:16:21
Welcome him back with open arms.
1:16:22
It's a thrill to have you with us.
1:16:25
Is there more music coming this year? Yes. Is there an album? Uh yeah, I think so.
1:16:28
I mean, I'm going to keep just making more of these cuz it's I'm having more fun than I ever had making them cuz all I care about is just making cool music.
1:16:37
Will you come back and hang out anytime? I better.
1:16:40
It's been so much so much fun hanging out with you and talking with you and I hope everyone else has enjoyed.
1:16:43
I I don't care though, but I'm I had a brilliant time.
1:16:46
And and as promised because um you know, we've got so many songs we could play of yours, but I really really wanted to play this song right now cuz I really feel that it's kind of perfect. And dude, respect. You're a smart man.