good to see you man you too man here we are in the jungle in new york city a legendary spot alicia keys and swiss beats real estate and and business and creativity all coming together they're just amazing those two and um i love the space you've spent
time in here you did well you you worked with jay on magna carta in here yeah we i was uh there's a lot that's happened in the studio i mean um the beyonce album uh said i co-wrote some some some tunes on that uh um i mean did you really have to stop with
that straight yeah no if anytime i can name drop beyonce i'm doing like 40 seconds in it's like i wrote songs for beyonce yeah this white boy no um um and then yeah really weirdly though like jay came in to do um to do a feature on 2020 experience and then three weeks
later magna carta was like done just because i think he was like hanging out and she had like 90 songs for that album and she was sort of just you know going through a library of material to figure out what she wanted to do with it and yeah we were in the studio adjacent to
this one that's where i mean we literally did suit and tie and holy grail within like two or three days was it the most fun tour you ever did legends i had a blast my favorite part was just like the moment where we were about to go on stage and jay
still was in the stadium and we're like is he coming that's my favorite part uh no i'm kidding no actually my favorite part was like doing rehearsals uh because we got there and he's you know i mean he's obviously a genius at what he does but the thing that i was so taken aback by
after we spent that much time together and actually really became friends was we got to rehearsal and i pitched him all these ideas because my whole thing was i said you know i feel like we have to put for that tour that this needs to feel like a block party
but the rules are you can only play the two of us and luckily we share two very you know prolific producers you know i've worked on both of our stuff a lot especially in the last two decades and um and he just said to me he's like he's like i don't know man you're the
musician you just put some stuff together and i'll just tell you if i think it sounds great and i was like great basically he was i was a kid in a candy store because happy but to him he's like i'm foisting all musical direction on you right now he foisted me
he flexed it he fasted me shout out to larry david um so the reason we're sitting here ma'am man of the woods this new album four and a half year gap but first of all i wanna talk about some of the things i've been keeping you busy um you've been having fun
you know extending your your basic collaboration working with foo fighters that was a nice touch you and dave grohl in the room i can imagine the four horsemen are close to manning up because it's like that's the signal the two nicest men in music hanging out together
i just want you guys to be like with the doors closed and it's just the two of you just like everybody we talked a lot a bit about people for sure they're about half a bottle of whiskey and the talking commenced yeah that'll do it um what else did you do you
uh reinvented the denim jacket is that right for levi's uh so a few of them yeah this is one of them actually it's nice i like it it's good yeah you had one of the biggest hits of the year um arguably the biggest uh last year with um you know can't stop huge
moment um when you're in the middle of that because you've been in the middle of that a few times that very special alchemy of creativity and success right and and do you appreciate it more when it's coming at you like that in a situation like that and it's a
standalone moment and you're at that point in your life because it was a ridiculously big record i mean you couldn't escape it uh not apologizing uh you know that one for me was it was actually a really really new experience um because it was the first time i feel like
you know it was for a separate project an animated film and you know i probably wouldn't have been so gung-ho about you know even being a voice character in the film if if i wouldn't have you know if me and my wife wouldn't have had a child and so there was definitely
the air of innocence and you know uh uh some sort of childlike feeling that that fueled that song and can't stop the feeling was was was was was interesting just because it it came from it was it was born out of trying to make something that i you know worked in the film and that
you know my my my son could listen to now yeah you know because a lot of my music i would not play for my son now yeah you know um although i did play filthy for him and he's already got the haters gonna say his fake line down he does so that's pretty fresh
he literally said it to me the other day but he was like so real and i was like man when that r kicks in like that you're gonna be you gotta record those moments man because willy willy fresh son uh and finally you wore that at christmas which is without the greatest
christmas jumper i think i've ever seen in my life you know who you know who got bought me that for my uh for christmas my mother she's the best what's your mom's name again lynn crazy yeah is she the funniest person i ca i literally kept saying it to my son ask
your mom if i'm real ask your mom it's good material it's terrible all the greatest artists shed skin and move forward and sheer skin and it doesn't change who you are but you shed your skin so you know you start out the new mickey mouse club you move into nsync who
quickly who were you at that moment in time uh uh very competitive extremely idealistic um um and yeah i mean a perfectionist um then you move on you make justified you step away you shed your first real skin you move into the studio with neptune's
you know start collaborating doing your own thing who were you i think that's the first time i felt like a young adult like really and like i could really express myself so i was really open um i was still extremely impressionable but trust in my instincts that i was around
the right people to guide you to and to put the impressions on me you know pharrell and chad and and timberland mainly on that record and i mean i remember being the funny thing is i remember being in nsync and you know or right before and super duper
fly came out and i was you know i'm walking around you know you know bfe tennessee you know small town usa going like you guys understand it's the future of music you know this is unbelievable you know and that was you know uh midnight marauder was very
important for me that that syncopation really it always stuck with me and uh i mean at the same time too you're trying to figure out who you are so like i was you know you mentioned dave earlier like i've like literally pushed my way onto singing
just some la la las on the foo fighters record because i had this whole and this is after the whiskey again when i got brave enough but like told him how important nirvana was for me because i was so young and like you know just that attitude you know that
that oh like everything everyone's telling you may not be right but so so so yeah like it came full circle because you know you asked pharrell who's the most important he'll tell you tribe you know that that influenced him more than than anyone so i don't know it was like this maybe
there's just something across the bible belt you know the water across the bible belt because i just felt like these guys were you know i felt like a freshman in college looking up to these guys that had already you know graduated you know and i think
that's the way i felt on the first album and and sort of discovering discovering really who i was as a songwriter as well you know to collaborate with them in that way future sex love sounds shedding skin you've grown somewhat the confidence of success
taking a few more risks in with timberland so your wholesale super duper fly now all right so quickly again who are you have you changed let's see i was still in between those two albums i was still very like sensitive about being reviewed you know as i'm sure a lot of young
people are yeah um you know because you kind of put your heart on your sleeve and and for the most part it went well but but i was always i was kind of that person when i was younger that i would you know there could be for every 20 like this is bringing pop
music into the future there would be that one that's like i don't get it [Music] man so your skin gets a little tougher at that point well well i remember specifically that when i made uh when i finished justified i was like wow i really made an r b
album like i wanted to i really wanted to make an r b album like this is everything i grew up loving that i feel like i can uh put in my pocket and and and and make something new out of it um using all my influences and then every review was like pop album pop
album pop album and i was like it really did put in my brain well i guess if i'm always going to be looked at as a pop artist more than anything like what does that mean like and and and the so i i think i you know in the midst of doing a tour and kind of rethinking how i would do it
again um that hypothesis kept you know circling around my brain and if i'm going to be a pop star let me subvert it even more i just feel like let me do whatever i want i'm going to do whatever i want and at the time you know tim and i just clicked even
more and we were talking about new wave you know sonics and then we started getting into i wonder how we could redefine you know i wonder how we could redefine dance music also like i just want to be very clear that that record came out in 2006 and tim
very specifically said let me see what you're twerking with so i don't want to hear about this twerk movement anymore that happened years half a decade later no i'm i'm half kidding only because i like to take up for him but i'm half kidding put that in your pipe and smoke it right
20 20 parts one and two shedding skin and then pause you become a dad that's really why you took the time right spend some time with your son yeah no i've never felt more inept in my life right like you wake up and all of a sudden there's this human being you're
responsible for and i still i mean yeah you know you it's exhilarating very soon and and you talked about your 11 year old my three-year-old's already running our house it's like yeah so you you're with you you're with your family you do you take the necessary
time off that's the smart move life first and then man of the woods this album dude start to finish i feel like you've shed enough skin this is the closest i feel that we get to you as a person i would agree with that for sure i mean it's it's definitely the
most introspective record i've made i think every i think every album that i've done before that was about aspiration and like how can i pay homage to my influences while you know like oh suit and tie like yeah it's not about expensive taste but it is about class
wouldn't you like why not aspire to that and also there's an element of like who am i gonna be on each record as opposed to who am i right now exactly right so so i talk about i talk about everything before man of the woods is aspiration and then
man of the woods really is inspiration right because you look and you sort of you know when you have kids all of a sudden you're you're faced with your own childhood and good and bad and and you know am i gonna completely mess this kid up i feel like the success of parenthood is
feeling like uh i failed all day today but i get to wake up tomorrow and do it again you know like and and hopefully they turn out to be a good human being pharrell i take some pharrell last night i said i'm gonna talk to justin tomorrow he's like it's
gonna be a good one i was like i'm looking forward to it okay and i said to him you know can you give me this little something so then he went away and it was like about an hour and i was like well you know that's what that what that's called is the show biz no
which is just like i don't want to say no so i go quiet the non-response non-response is the most respectful response right so i was like he's giving me the no yeah but then he came back and he said uh justin is at a place in life where he realizes anything he does has
to have meaning which i think is a beautiful quote what does that mean to you i mean i would agree with that for sure you know the funny thing is like this sound that that ended up on this album came out of like two years of conversations with pharrell talking about sound and
talking about like no there there's this real estate there's this sonic real estate that's so available and he kept pushing me and pushing me to say uh no but you're the guy that has to do it because you're from there you know you're from the south you can
you can put like a positive thing out there about the south and we can do it with the sound and i know like i can hear it he kept telling me i can hear it and when pharrell says that you never fight against that right so he visualized it he knew what it was going to sound like
to some degree he he had i think i think he had an inkling you know and but but i also know that while we were making it we both looked at each other and he even said to me he's like i didn't know it was this we really delved in deep sonically like it
has a really it really i feel like it has a really deep sound to it but but just to back just to backtrack a little bit he kept talking to me about it and talking to me about it and i was like i hear you and and you know within that time that's you know that's when we had silas just
and i had silas and and um that's when things became you know it's like if that's literally like when you hear the record scratches you know what i mean life just like turns into another thing and everybody tells you that oh your life's gonna
change you're like yeah whatever i got it my wife and i look at each other when we have a you know a night off and we get him to bed and we sit down and just like watch a movie or something and we're like what did we do before this did we go out to dinner like were we at
a bar i don't like what did we do before yeah it's true it's true but but it really started to to take uh it really started to to to take flight when we we said i you know i i got into a place where you know i was we had had silas we've been at home i took like
we took like six months and i didn't do anything and then we started having real conversations yeah when next year comes around let's get together and you're talking to pharrell at this point yes you hadn't worked with neptune's on a project of yours since justified
that's true i mean it's it's the most obvious question i'm probably going to ask today but why um you want the showbiz answer no i'm with the real okay um uh we i i was i was not able to work with pharrell out of a um and and i got to say this right away
because i don't want to blame anybody for anything but it did change the course of things for a minute um uh everyone remembers clips clips was assigned to jive records which i was signed to um i don't know what went on with their deal but i do remember that pharrell
was very adamant about getting them out of the deal so it became uh from my understanding you know it became challenging for him to work with any jive artist at that point if i'm being totally honest about it i was extremely hurt being caught up in the middle of it but
at the same time i had listen i had had a lot of money stolen you know for me by somebody else when i was in the group you know i'd already gone through like legal troubles and i kind of felt like you know what i'm at this point where i feel like i
have so much ahead of me i don't i just don't want the i don't want to be i don't want to be in the middle of the record label and somebody that you know i consider a friend and so i feel like i kind of removed myself from this situation yeah
it seems very important to the sound of the record that chad was involved in it was a neptune's production not a for rail production yes because there's there was a fundamental difference yes i think that i think that well we had those conversations about it and i think as a just as
uh you know a fan of the history you know the legacy it was but can we also get chad in and then you know we had two more conversations and it was like that thing where he didn't hit you back for an hour it was like it was like two two more conversations
and he was like and yeah i'm gonna bring chad and we're gonna he was gonna do the thing no he wasn't exasperated he was just like emphatic about like yeah we're gonna do this this way did you put any id back together then because was there even talk about
them no that's that's that's that's them being that's them being them right which i'm a big fan of it it all worked out in a way where we we we just got back together pharrell and i and and then obviously chad you know came in as well um but a lot of
discussion and then we were talking about where do we start where do we start and and we were talking about parenthood and he said he said what's your son's name and and and i said silas you know i named him after my grandfather and my great-grandfather who
those guys were you know the uh my grandfather was was was pretty much i mean my parents divorced when i was young my grandfather was very much a father figure to me but obviously from two generations removed you know like just tough as nails and like i don't need to
go to the doctor they're like yeah i'm like i'm like i need my ent you know what i mean like uh i guess in my defense this is my my my uh livelihood but but um he said to me he said what does what does your son's name mean and i was like you know i've never
i don't know and i literally just went on google like meaning of the name silas and it sent me to this to this site and it said of latin origin meaning man of the woods and there it is and and i said it means man of the woods and i was like how serendipitous my last
name is timberlake like what does that mean and like we were having all these discussions and he goes man you know what that's a that's a really really good name for a song and i was like that's a really good name for an album you know and we literally man of the woods the title
track was the first song we wrote for this album and that like the whole thing just took flight from there you know because for him to put something that felt so urban but like to put these like you know what feels like like a slide guitar on it
you know to move like that it just feels really southern let me put it this way and pharrell said this to me as well like no no you just didn't know you could dance to the mountains but you can you know if you put it in the right context filthy's a banger i said that to
you i reached out to you before we had a chat and just was like man the first time i heard that thing i loved all the kind of live you know but then when the baseline comes and it's like all right you know we're slinking in it's a palette cleanser it's kind of almost a little bit of
diversion tactic it's like a depth charge in the water i think a little bit which i like it is disruptive which i think when we started looking at all the songs it was like i mean why not you know like let's just kick everybody in the balls right now
yeah which you did so as well as being an uncredited uh uh actor on one of the greatest films of all time pop star uh never stop stopping which i i can't believe you're uncredited it's the biggest mistake you've ever made in your career
you also held off uh from crediting your wife vocally at the end of the song and a lot of people started to talk about is that is that jessica on the end of the song well the answer is obviously yes yes i mean you say that it's your way yeah so yes is the answer and it begins
it begins a theme throughout the record like so before we talk specifically about those because i want to go through the album she is credited on the album as as my son as well as my son she's gonna point she gets all the points bro are you married do you know how this
works he's got all my publishing yep that's true all fate is up um did was she into it or did you have to like how did that nah she was into it i it started off as there's a very specific interlude that is all hers where i just created a bed of music for her to
speak over which becomes the intro for song flannel yeah and i felt like in the when i started started sequencing the album i felt like you're right filthy comes in and it's just like it's like it's like trying to get through the first 30 seconds of
a round with mike tyson at his peak you know like you there's like a compilation on on youtube of of just mike tyson knocking people out in eight seconds yeah and so i knew that that was that sort of like kick in the pants like i said so i felt like immediately i wanted to
cleanse the palate and then take you directly into where you go the forest yeah where you going take you take you outside yeah yeah you know and and so so i felt like i needed a like a voice of consciousness and did she write her parts or did you do it
together like how did that happen um i wrote them for her for the most part um and funny enough she just did him on voice note for me i got her to just like i would say something to her and you know it wasn't like line readings but but she would just sort of repeat
them in her own way and and i said i almost want you to be like i almost want you to feel like you're the ghost it's not it's very theory yeah you're you're a presence you're not an actual person you know but we're following you you know and and it's almost you can be a little
playful with it we tried it a bunch of different ways right um and then i got this idea on i was i was on the way to studio to mix flannel and and i got this idea i was like wow this could be really interesting and i called her and i said i want you to have
a conversation like you're talking to your best girlfriend because she's notorious for like taking my vintage t-shirts and my jackets and you know anything she likes she was like can i wear this you know to dinner tonight and then i don't see it ever again
um and and so you know there was the i remember that we had had a conversation she's like i don't know i like you not like wearing your shirts i feel like where's this been you know like it's a piece of you you know that i can always have and you
know when you travel away because you know traveling so much we didn't have a family at that point we were just a married couple and she's like when you travel and i have to work like it's nice to have your t-shirt or your you know your flannel shirt and and so
it was a it became a great idea for for a song uh what is the most frustrating thing what do you know frustrates your wife most of all about yourself i mean yeah we don't have enough time to tell you all the things that i'm sure frustrates her about me um
i can tell you one small thing that i did just popped up in my mind that definitely uh gets on her nerves okay uh about me is that she'll ask me a question and i'll be processing the answer to it but it really comes across like i did not pay attention to anything she just
said she's like did you hear what i said yes i heard i'm still reserving my yes or no right i'm not sure yeah um i mean i'm getting frustrated you just tell me about that parent talk is that the plan more i mean i want to have as many as as we can if i'm being honest
um check out to tennessee i don't know if i'll ever be done you know i just know that i won't always be um won't always be young and and so yeah i mean i always want to write music i always want to make movies i always want to go on tour i don't know how long my body will let
me do it you know i i've realized that for the first time in my life you know in preparation for this tour it hurts getting older hurts yeah um so so yeah should have made sexy back a little slower buddy i know right well there's always time
there's always time yeah how's the tour prep going yeah uh good good so i mean you jumped in man i mean i think nowadays people put a record out there chill get their act together take you know you were you were announcing well that's what i always did
but i felt like there was something about a lot of the music that even though we've talked about how wide-ranging it can be i feel like it was really immediate and i've never done it this way you know i've never like put a record out and just ready to go
um within two months i usually usually uh you know it's like couple singles album tour you know becomes like a six month process but i don't know i felt like there was there was so much i wanted to to put out before the album came out that um it then it begged the question like how
fast can we get out and play these songs live and like feel the immediacy of of it and it's it's obviously thematically connected to the record so we can expect that kind of thing yeah but it will also in and out and outdoor yeah it'll also touch on i mean
um you know it'll touch on uh you know past hits as well you know we'll completely that's the beauty of of of a show is you can you know you can just keep changing colors yeah yeah at you know the snap of of of a finger and and but i yeah the the whole idea that like
we could use modern technology to make you feel in some shape or form like to heighten your senses to make you feel like you're outdoors i mean you'll know you're not you know it's like but but to the whole play on that it really it it um it's just a it's just a visual
um sort of um realization of of what i feel like we've created sonically would you do vegas one day would you ever consider it i mean there's more people doing it right i mean i wouldn't rule it out if it was something that was different i definitely don't
you know i immediately i'm like it it like it it feels like the it feels like uh you're planning you're planning your retirement you know what i mean so so for some reason that feels like scary and understandably the the person who did vegas better than anybody was
prince you know like he was like yeah i'll just show up when i show up and i'll play like 10 shows a year and and and it'll be it'll be me because i'm the greatest ever that ever did it what's your favorite prince story i can't say it yeah it involves too much profanity uh
that he was not a fan of um for somebody like him like any time that i got like the nod of like i really like i really like your new record i was like you've heard it you know you just feel like like prince is so dope he should only listen to him
you know like and so and and and so um i just i'm not even listening to you right now i'm just wishing you could tell me that other story i'll tell you after okay i'll tell you as if it's not you know enough for you to be out there in rehearsal trying to
prepare for the release of a record making music videos making sure this album goes getting your tour together rehearsing you've always watched the football game landed the big fish now this is i mean this is borderline psychotic you're doing this at this time
to you for doing it um so so okay third time but that you're returning after the last time and when you announced it brought up the last time for a lot of people again and that naturally i mean that's something that we talked about yeah a bit so what was the conversation
i wasn't to be honest it's like it wasn't too much of a conversation um it's just one of those things where you go like yeah we're not gonna what do you want me to say like we're not gonna do that again you know like this is so crazy that is
the world's biggest stage man and like to come off that stage back then and and realize that like everything had was supposed to go to plan and now the whole thing is something completely different to the rest of the performance must have been like one of those moments as a as
an artist and a human being yeah i mean how do i how do i roll through this yeah and and i stumbled through it you know to be quite honest like i have my wires crossed and it's just something that you you have to look back on and go like okay well
you know you can't change what's happened but you know you can you can move forward and learn from it and you and you and janet took some time to do that after the fact and kind of resolved the situation and like were able to make peace in the whole thing
absolutely yeah yeah i and i'm not sure that i don't know that a lot of people know that i mean i don't think it's my job to to to do that because you you value the relationships that you do have with absolutely 100 is that still a line you have to walk
for yourself to do you have to challenge yourself to not get caught up in stress and not feel the burden of fame fame is not a burden to me you know i really do believe it's a lie you know it's not it doesn't it it's not something that that is tangible
you can't ever hold on to it it doesn't matter you know stress is a real thing yeah man for real it is cruel you know so yes stress stress i i still have trouble with i can be very stressed out sometimes a lot of the time from most of the time um i can be extremely obsessive especially
especially when it comes to um uh especially when it comes to music specifically i think music actually lends itself to the compulsive mind i think the idea of focusing on one thing for a long period of time is what offsets that compulsion it's actually probably
the medicine the medicine the artistic side of the brain no question no question um i think i think the only thing that that really helps me through it is i've adopted this this uh i've adopted the possibility of anything do you feel being a father i'm sure there are
times i know that every parent i'm sure at times feels desperate uncertain about the world that we're bringing our children up in yeah for sure and i wonder what you believe the identity of america should be or is or how you feel about it right now i i wrestle i mean
it's where i say something came from i wrestle with a lot of it uh uh um a lot of the time do you feel it deeply uh i do i do i think that um i think it's going to require um a sort a real steadfast patience um and uh but i do i i heard someone say this the other day
and and i do agree with it like the idea and the ideals of america being the land of opportunity and the realization right now with um what it is not what our idea of it what we want it to be is they're just they're i think we're realizing
that they're just so much further apart than than we could have even imagined and it's it's tough because you can't just like you can't just do one thing you know and and and it change everything it's just gonna take a lot of it's gonna take a lot of really good uh steadfast
patient minds and hearts to come together and and and it's funny i don't i don't even look at it as this side and this side like there's so many sides i think also too like our access to information has sort of you know it's it's hard sometimes it can be confusing about
what to sort of believe in not not let alone what to believe i want to talk about this song called supplies um this is a swerve produced by neptune's interesting track melodically very southern very country a lot a lot of the close-knit circles
favorite yeah beat wise very heavy uh true story elements of a true story yeah there there were elements of a true story i mean that you know for the sake of the song you know heightened and flipped and like you said swerved but but yeah it came from
from a place um and yeah man that i mean what's it about without giving away the story too much i mean protect it but give us an idea as to what you want to get the course in the song you know i mean the visual for the video which have been a video for every song
well i've made a video for four of them so far um the video for that song will be a bit of a statement um and i'll let people sort of you know interpret it the way they want to but um it definitely started off as i mean just the simple idea of the song is like if the world
ends i got you if it all comes crashing down i got your back yeah and it started off with it started off with the bass and and the drums so it had the it definitely was you know it had that modern tempo well pop music has changed shape so dramatically since you were even
released the last record absolutely in the last two years we're seeing the way pop music and it's always been the most adaptable genre of music it's always molding absorbing and swallowing and regurgitating and changing its shape and and if you think about
you know who's around now like do you listen do you do do you have playlists do you listen to new music as it's coming out or you you know yeah yeah i mean i still listen to everything i still listen to everything who do you like who would you be listening to right
now on a sort of modern level who's coming out in particular yeah travis is is is i'm a big fan of him um just travis no um uh no i i really like travis's stuff um there's a definite sonic thing going on right now and that's what supplies is to me
supplies is like a that to me feels like you know swerving into that territory but also bringing the theme of the record with you yes and the most important thing that pharrell and i were conscious of when we were writing lyrics and melodies were that it was that it was very melodic you