I was like well I'm so down to just set myself on fire but it turned out it was a lot more expensive to pyro between that and like the outfit and the thing I was like fck no it's really hard on fashion too yeah no but you have to you can't they haven't figured out how to look fabulous and burn
exactly really can't wait to talk about this this music but how are you today I mean it's it's start dead it's just talk about the present moment and I mean the album's not out yet and yet everyone who is talking to you has listened to it so it's stting to share first opinions and give you you know a take on what they
feel it's about this this this what are you learning about the record through other people's eyes and ears right now you know the Germans are always my like litmus test of whether or not whether or not a record is like right you know kind of by the way if anyone has a say five minutes go and look at like YouTube videos of German
interviewers talking to bands and so your new album trend is uh is very disappointing so the new album is not good I did not like it as much as your last one why used not all bad but some bad but but very bad in in some cases so it's so true so I mean the the Germans are any barometer it's like oh no I
think people are are digging it which is I feel like new zealanders are on the other end of this picture I'm we just like Vin is backing his off the hook we I mean we'll take care of you effusiveness any day trust me it's you know I'm here for effusiveness that's what I do um but yeah but interestingly Beyond just The Benchmark observations
like I think surprising you some of the details and nuances people are picking up on some of the songs or perhaps what people are taking from it that may even just surprise you a little bit yeah I mean I feel very much like listeners complete the song you know and of course I'm always writing records that are
about exactly what are going on exactly what is going on in my life at the time and they're all intensely personal but at the end of the day I'm like I don't want to explain what it's about or or it doesn't matter what I was going through in so many ways not because you know my life doesn't matter or anything like
that but because me as a fan when I love something it's like no I don't I don't care what the artist was going through need some space to figure it out for yourself yeah but but I also like I genuinely don't care if you know the artist was going through heartbreak or you know lost their dog or whatever I just know that
like when I love a song it's mine this is such an interesting place for us to begin because I was having this conversation with Ariana Grande the other day about this album that she's made through the lens of this movie Eternal Sunshine and it's clearly an album that talks about losing love finding love sort of trying to replace
bad memories with new memories and and so you can feel the concept rolling through the record the reason I bring it into our conversation is because we were talking about how challenging it can be making something personal and knowing it doesn't sit in the record stay in the record it just then becomes something
everybody wants to pull apart and talk about like it's a life conversation that should be had by everyone who doesn't know do you know what I mean and I would hate that to get in the way of the art but you've got the right idea but I think somewhere along the line we have crossed the line where people think that
because a song is about something we should just talk about it eternally through the personal filter yeah but also I think you know songs are Roar Shack tests for The Listener it's it's about whatever The Listener brings to it true and that's the beautiful generative thing of music is that it's you know it might start
here but it it blooms into Infinite fractal yeah moments for other people so I I mean I think I think the oh this must be about this and let's connect all the dots you know to the to the artist's life I think that's just I don't know teritory comes with the territory or come maybe as a as sign of the times a little bit but I think
ultimately if the work is great you kind of don't even need a backstory yeah but we're going to get one little bit today I to break it to you that's why you're here uh so let's talk about where it started let's talk about where this album started for you because I'm interested I don't always ask this
question it seems like an obvious one for for everybody but I I only really ask it when I'm when I feel that um there has to be purpose real purpose and it's not just like let's get in the studio and look around like I feel like for you to go in there and decide I'm going to produce This Record I'm going
to pick my collaborators and my friends really carefully and I'm going to go and I'm going to mind something here and I'm going to bring it out so let's just start where it started for you and and what the feeling was like when you knew okay the stirring is too is too too great I got to I got to get to work I think the record for me
started with being in my studio and first of all building a studio that was really mine that was like this is a legit Studio this isn't just you know a little laptop dorm room you know building a real Studio you know if you if you build it they will come yeah and well no one did as the case may
be you sat in there on your own the whole time eventually they did eventually I invited them in and got and thank God for it uh but a lot of the records started with me in my studio setting up my modular setting up my drum machines putting all those things through a mixer and making post-industrial dance music for myself
by myself at like 8 in the morning like coffee you know micro do indust post-industrial dance music right and I think the ethos behind that was of course love plugin love technology blah blah blah but everything had to start with electricity going into unique circuitry and making sounds that you could never replicate exactly again so
you you it's that's life itself you're like harnessing chaos and again with modulars for anybody who knows this world drum machines like you can sort if it's analog you can sort of get it back you can kind of you can no not really no it's never going to be exactly what it was so programming a lot of stuff and
going let me see where the sound takes me and sound has meaning sound is intention recognizing that sound as hidden intention in a oblique strategy sort of way and then going through those endless jams and being like well most of this is probably not listenable for anyone but me but these 4 seconds they
sound like a song so like broken man for example was you know and you're like all right like okay canvas that's a song yeah I can build I can build something around and that came out of just letting it just jamming through these to your point through these Circle boards I'm I have this theory that the ' 80s is just the most
inventive Innovative time for music because no one knew how to use use the new tools yeah so everyone was just like like oh that sounds great what do we do with it I don't know and then someone goes I sing like this now I sing like this now and it was very weird and it's like number one top of the pop SP now belly it's like what
the flock of seagull that's the weirdest time ever enter your point I do use an orchestra hit a few of them on this record is so great and so and so I think to be able to go and that's why when I talk to an artist who comes at it from this perspective I realize that their curiosity is has been peaked in ways
that they never they're learning things they never learn before and in a way they're they're speaking a language they couldn't speak before they're learning how to speak the language of the Circuit of the circuitry you know I'll I'll quote Miles Davis and just say like an artist's greatest goal is to sound like themselves I probably botched his
expression but more or less that's what we're aiming for like you want to know that you hear one note of epit Gerald sing and you're like that's elitz Gerald damn we know because that's that's it right like that's that's the DNA that's the arc that's the truth and I felt like okay I I I've I've gotten some places as
a guitar player or as a singer or is it you know but I wanted to produce This Record because I wanted to have that same kind of like well one I think emotionally there are certain places that you can only go alone there's just whether it's you know standing there and just like going oh just I'm I'm looking at myself and it's
not so pretty um but also whether it's like finding your own Sonic lexicon in the same way that you are a a you know a singer or player or whatever it's like no this is a St Vincent production so I wanted to find that yeah who Am I who am I right now at this moment and so especially coming off the back of
Daddy's home which was a beautiful companion to this record because you began to untangle some real but we do it in a costume when we stop it was an interesting like Freudian exercise to be like I know I'll become the thing that my father loved and and also talk about him and all these things going on deal with the trauma yeah totally yeah
if I had to do over again I might not have been so autobiographical uh on really yeah because I think it was like I think uh I mean I didn't it didn't even occur to me I was just like oh yeah well I how can I put out a record called Daddy's home that has a song about like signing autographs in the prison waiting
room like and not I just thought it was so obvious remember I remember not to take you back there but when we talked during that album cycle and watched a couple of other read a couple of other things with you doing that album cycle I could tell that you were figuring out in real time how do I actually survive this
because I remember going into that conversation saying okay so we got some subject matter here and you were like still figuring out what I want to say about what I wrote about so I mean yeah I I can imagine that was really tough for you but in a way why I was saying it's a companion piece is because I
don't you tell me whether or not you could have got here on your own in a room trying to figure out who you truly are at this moment in time unless you're taking that risk and and cross that bridge a little bit and being in that uncomfortable space you know I don't think it's possible I think you you have
to one you know it's the same it's the same idea of regret right like if you regret things then you're casting aspersions on who you are now you don't have headphones on but every now and then when someone says something that's a that's a real keeper that goes into the Playbook of Life yeah I drop a bomb
on okay so I had to drop a bomb on that because that was a beautiful perfectly surmised description of what regret does to the psyche of the moment right exactly you can't you can't go back and you can't say oh uh because you wouldn't be where you are now and and you had to go through all that you had to earn
every scar you had to all that so I don't mean in any way I don't I I feel no regret about really anything um but uh I think you can't you just are where you are when you are there and that sounds uh either brilliant and Buddhist or really stupid but no it's a for over I'm over dumbing down the idea of the moment being the singularity of
why we exist we do such a good job of pretending it's some holistic pipe dream I think it's because we're terrified of it yeah so we find a lot of reasons to mock it yeah and I'm too old to marcket man I'm into it know I'm into it too there's like that's this that's this record it's like you're alive or you dead yeah and the
life part is so short it's so short and so the only thing worth living for is Love The Only Thing Worth doing is is doing things you love and that's kind of it and that more or less you know I go you walk through your knees on some broken glass to kind of get there on the record but like it ends with an ecstatic
Mantra we're all born screaming the the the suffering and the joy they aren't the suffering isn't some to be to be a cancer to be excised like the suffering and the joy it's all part of the same thing complicated we're a weird species we're so simple at so much we simplify things we're so dumb in some things and yet we're so complicated
everything is happening all the time all it you know and so how do you how do you deal with how do you look at the uh violence and Chaos that is life but then also go yeah but I'm going to choose to live it yeah I choose I choose to live it I choose to live it right let's go that's what this album is this album is
like I made my choice and um I'm going to push through it starts with a song called hell is near was that always song number one on the album I love a track listing I'm super tracklisting nerd I kind of look at making records like making these beautiful ornate puzzle pieces just H just obsessing over every Last Detail but the record doesn't tell you
what it is and what the big picture is that you're making until the very end that requires discipline I I can't I me maybe it's just the way my brain thinks but at some point I'm trying to plan it at some point I can't resist trying to plan it in my head understand you know so so I'd love to know how you you know
really Encourage Yourself to not start to think of that song in relation to the bigger picture because I love the idea of you taking a step back and saying I've said enough I've sung enough I've produced enough I've created enough it is what it is now let's see how now let's see what everyone's saying to each other right
now on this record but that I mean to do that effectively you really have to be disciplined right you really have to be like that doesn't talk to that until the time is right stay away from each other yeah well I think it if you do the work on the songs and the songs are correct and you know I don't mean
correct in any I I just mean correct and whatever the sort of artistic compass that you hone yourself it's only you know this feeling that that you yourself know if if you get the songs there then you're going to realize like oh there's streams and there's threads and I didn't even realize but this is a motif here and this is a motif here some
of that some of that work as long as you're just like approaching it with a pure heart does it does it for you without having to intellectualize it yeah intellectualization I know dancing about architecture I'm very aware my job is somewhat irrelevant but I feel that in going through this motion of talking
to people about the music that they make um I have I have learned that that to your point that that process of trying to stay to take yourself out of it is kind of where the joy is as much as you can do you know what I mean and yet you are in this music like it's to me it's one of the most I think I said this to
on the day I heard it it's it's like the most powerful performance album you've ever done I think oh thank you I've really feel that I feel it what do you feel when I say something like that do you agree do you hear yourself finding places you've never been before was it shocking to you sometimes what came out
when you were trying to sing these songs it's all labored over in a fun way in a stressful way in a liberating way all the ways um there and music to me rather than becoming uh more understandable as I go on becomes more bizarre and magical and mystical in ways that I don't I can't really even talk about right but all I know is
there's some songs that you know you maybe have to wrestle them to the ground and grab them by the neck and just you're that but then there's other stuff that just it's almost like Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom I like this you know what I mean no but carry on with you but where you're like which just
like only a penitent manshel past like you have to like bow before them bow before these songs and just be like my heart is pure I am not performing this song I just am this song I don't have to be it I am it this is lived this is lived experience if I have to sing it 100 times to get there to where there's no
there's no vanity there's no performance performance like whatever okay whatever until it's just like it just is it's not trying to be it just is which one uh Reckless was like that I hate hierarchies in albums especially in front of an artist always a bit dangerous but that is my favorite song right now really thank you love
that song the performance at the beginning The Way You Usher it in that's an example of like a you I haven't heard on a record before so okay how far is enough I mean it it sounds the way you describe it almost like you have to self flagellate in order to get the performance that you want I'm sure it's
not as simple and as like cod religious as that but this idea of like you're not hurting enough until I hear you really get to the truth is that is that is that really what it is it really it really is you just you sing it and sing it until it's not not anything but true do you sleep better after that or do you sleep worse
I sleep like a baby you kidding me I sleep like a baby she who has no regrets yeah I don't really I haven't really talked about this but um I really want to give props to someone who became a friend uh during the making of This Record and also like kind of was an angel on my shoulder um Steve McQueen the filmmaker
um I'm not even sure how we became friends but we just started talking on the phone like once every couple months we just talked about art talked about life talked about art and he was really a person who just constantly reminded me like go deep deeper the only thing is love go for it go for it go for it and I
don't say that in sort of like a name droppy way he just appeared in my life at a very crucial time and was sort of like a real real angel in the making of this when someone comes into your life and this has happened to me before as well and and they and you described it really nicely like almost like sort of an angel
you know like and and when you say that I always think like in my life it's people who just there's no Rhyme or Reason why they're there but then they very clearly present that purpose so without without being very micro about it um you know what what really was the let's go a little bit deeper then what what was the beginning of this record
not the sitting down and plugging in and listening to the circuitry what was going on that you're comfortable talking about that really ultimately bore fruit on this record with the help of whoever came into your life hope you have the courage to do it I think it was just loss of people I love and
loved I think that that was really it where you know loss like that is very clarifying in certain ways um because you just know what matters and then you know what doesn't matter and you can just see things very clearly for a time for a Time beautifully put yeah you you know the further you get from it sometimes you still get lost in
yeah life will just you know whatever but when that you pointed that out I mean we all have this idea in our head that it's going to be this this never ending sort of story of growth and uh and holistic healing but man you know it's okay for a Time yeah that just clarifies what you should talk about really like when the world is ending
like I don't know I'm not going to tell people to get up and dance I mean maybe the song groups and but like I'm I just I just had to kind of look uh just look at it just really look at it look at life it's a tough bridge I think a lot of people try to cross it a lot of us I mean we're all people a lot of us
try to cross it and um we stop like a third of the wave over and we go no no no no no I don't want to stare at this I'm good I'm good I need a drink or I need a joint or I need something else cuz I'm going back there right and one thing I've learned is you can't go back there the only way is forward that's the
only way is that what this album represents to you really when you think about it is just like a hard push forward does feel like can't go over it can't go around it got to go through it got to run straight through it so is it enjoyable album for you to think about listening to given what it represents to
you I love listening to it yeah I love this record so much I think it's I mean you know every every time you put out a record you think this is my best you know this is my best one this is your best but I think this is my best one and I don't I mean it just just I don't know why I just I feel that that this feels
the most and I hope that the next record I put out I'll feel oh no that that one's my best one but as much as you know I talk about this record being like black and white and the colors of the fire and hell and it's a pretty fun listen you know dude for sure it's a pretty good time you made a reg record
what are you talking about you crazy re R there's some people in the building who have background on that ree situation and we won't bring them into this conversation but needless to say you made friends with re and that's a really really great I mean that that in itself is growth you should be proud of
yourself you made friends with well let's let's be clear I think we both know that this was a this was like my obsession with second wave SCA the specials two-tone records Le Scratch Perry you can't leave TCC out of this equation I know I know you're trying to keep it very under the West way okay but that was like okay but great I
love this music so much how can I do it wrong cuz if you if I tried to head it do it straight on that would just that's a a a a sin that's the name of your book If you ever to choose to write one about process called The Art of Doing It Wrong do it wrong The Art of Doing It Wrong spell art wrong SP it all just spell it
all wrong a art TT of Doing It Wrong r o n g yeah listen the the players that you brought into this again very thoughtful very deliberate everyone I feel like you know you kind of knew as the producer of this record you were like hm I need this I need this energy this sound this player this Vibe this kind of thing um
Justin M Johnson I'm a huge fan of this individual I mean not just as a as a incredible bass player as the most incredible shaky ass funky bass player in the unbelievable he's so major can I say yeah you can okay it's major but then he also knows his way around the studio like a beast so um I feel I
feel his presence on this record of times can we talk a bit about that cuz I love the idea of Shining Light on the few collaborators that you bought into this so jmj Justin milder Johnson I call jmj JJ um jmj I got to know him um because on the Daddy's home record I I I I sent it to him and I said hey maybe you could help me like put
together a band and he was like well I'm I'd be happy to help you put together a band but can I raise my hand yeah being the bass player I was like uh yeah I just never imagined he would yeah you know uh want to so I got to know him through that and then when I was he's such a tone freak and an incredible
producer and every esoteric drum machine every you know I would just hit him up and I was and and I I have a couple people in my life um like like that I don't mean to be Nam droppy but like I don't give a about name dropping by the way yeah y Annie Clark your s Vincent you hang with musicians it's part of your job drop all the
okay I'll drop the name so I just like I hit up Quest love and I'm like tell me everything you know about Frankie Knuckles like I want to know everything about you know so I'm like that and then I hit up jmj and I'm like tell me everything about post-industrial what where do you start um so he has great taste
what we would do is um I'd go he has a great studio so I would go over to his place and sometimes we would track base over there um but other times I would just be be like jmj because he has all the toys you know he has all the that's some ' 90s right there he has all the things and the '90s people if in the '90s before these things are a premium
you could just go anywhere and find that that's bit touring money that's what that is anytime he got to check of playing those midnight vulture songs he was getting an analog synth oh he was getting an analog synth he was getting a tape machine he was getting an obscure Japanese uh tape Echo he was you know
whatever so I would go over and like for example everything on the record is very much about being tactile you know it has to start tactile touch it everything has to be touched be like we're not putting a tape emulator on this we're touching the tape to speed it up and slow it down this is how it is touched you
hear that hiss yeah that's the Bula cuz it's old you know like I love this like this is fun too by the way it's fun fun yeah and it's again it's chaos and you're harnessing chaos yeah and you're like making sense and order out of chaos and that's life so I love it it's a scene it should be a scene you should call it a scene everyone should
have a scene in their life you have your own scene you got people you can call up and say hey man we're in a scene together I need some advice or can you tell me about this era of music that you know that better than I do and just point me in the right direction cuz I want to be super authentic about it yeah
we got so obsessed with like we're not a scene I'm not in a scene I would love to be in that scene in fact I am in that scene you call me anytime ask me about AO New Zealand flying none records I'll hit you up Absol truly who sang on The Record with you anybody I sang all of it except for my friend Kate Leon who is my favorite
modern song favor singer really I love her voice I do I love her voice but also I just she's Exquisite taste she builds worlds with her record she's an incredible producer in her own right so on alborn screaming she's uh part of the the choir and of course we know that um the greatest caveman of the modern
drumming era came out and smashed the out of whatever drum kit that was like like unfortunate enough to be in his presence he yeah he he ripped it in fact he ripped it he actually pulled the angry grow out which I haven't heard him play the like the angry gr probably since probably since vult in fact I don't even think he was
really that angry on the vult record he that felt funky to me he was angry On songs for the de oh yeah he was pissed off on that yeah that rips at some at some point Have you ever look checked out um Eric Valentine's like when he takes up the multi tracks of songs for the deaf and talks about like
the recording of it cuz that's another record that's just like sonically perfect perfect yeah rips I just remember hearing the actual s song for the Dead song for the first time when it just goes double time at the end and Dave just starts going actually losing his mind it's like I I don't think this guy's going to come back down
I think he's spired off into space he's he belongs to like the Universe now he's the best but also he's the best because he's a great songwriter so even if he's bringing like massive up you know Thunder he's serving the having a song He's just like taking a song and being like okay it was at a 9 it was
really good now it's at a 23 look at the education he had in the short amount of time he he was with Nana he got to play scentless Apprentice but he also got to play unplugged with those brushes with that great story about Kurt like softer and he's like dude yeah Kurt's like please play sof he's like dude I'm
letting the stick leave my fingers I'm not even using my wrists and they had to get brushes and then they were like what are these and the engineer was like these are drum brushes his guys he's like these sound amazing he never used them well he told me the story um back it was like in 2014 when I helped induct Nirvana into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame he told me the story of how he learned to drum and he had he loved drumming so much but he didn't have a drum kit yet you know grew up poor and stuff so he he started playing on the bed with baseball bats so like that's that's part of like how yes do you know why he's he's de Gro and I'm
and I'm not cuz I learned how to and I can drum but I learn how to drum with chop Chopsticks and a phone book so I mean there's a difference between baseball bats in a bed and Chopsticks and that says a lot about us I think yeah you got to start with a couple Louisville Sluggers who hits with baseball bats Dave girl my friend I
love the fact that you're able to move with freedom and confidence now um and put a record out and tour it and build around it and know that your audience love you and it's there for you I know you don't take that for granted it's hard to build an audience now it gets to do that I think when does the audience
start to play a part in your life again once the album is done when you start thinking about touring or when I'm making records besides going oo this one will be really fun to play Live or something like that I'm never reverse engineering songs to go what will people like let me become that thing I can't cuz it makes me tired one
uh and nothing good ever comes of it personally I don't think it's what we want from from you I think I don't think that's what we want from any artist am I crazy tell me I'm wrong I might be wrong I'm there is a territorial nature or an ownership that comes from being a certain point in your life when you discover music and you
feel like there you're close to the art really close to the art and it's defining your identity hard not to have a little bit of ownership over it at that moment and I think it comes with time and it comes with trust and it comes with a lot of music and then you're like oh I trust you like I trust
you radio head but I can't tell you that there wasn't a moment where I was like where's my Okay computer Mark too bro like do you know what I mean honestly just being honest it's like I look back on it now I'm like thank God you didn't do that I know and I mean I'm an In Rainbows girl but but yeah yeah yeah I
want to talk about who you've become outside of the studio and and how you relate to this kind of and I'm going to use this word really carefully and I hope you take it the right way but there's an iconic nature to what you've built from who you are and who you become when you are St Vincent do you see a separation between the two do you
put on the the cape and the do you have to put on this the S Vincent I'm going in I'm s Vincent right now I know even this is your most honest record or potentially most honest like personal record producing yourself but you do lean into character exercises in a way when you perform live I love that side
of what you do the theatricality of it is there a separate can you separate the two or do you not see any separation I think for a few records I was very interested in the idea of persona I was interested in deconstructing that you know and I was interested in this idea I mean you know my friend Carrie and I made a whole film
about this idea of like authenticity you know like people who pedal authenticity and you're like yeah but you're a liar like what okay the people who are selling you the truth are charlatans half the time you're like okay so how do we deconstruct that and spal Ty of truth right exactly I you know um six people saw it and that's
totally fine and uh but I was I was interested in that right because as a person and a queer person in the world I know how to code switch I learned that real young so this idea of persona and character and all of that that's not put on that is that is how one learns to live and survive I was going to say was that
survival absolutely so do I play with it in my art absolutely I do yeah and it's none of that is like um false or less authentic but that's certainly the source of it again I got it's it's a you know flippant way to say it but a lot of times people who are selling you authenticity are full of so so I'm GNA we don't want to know that by the
way I don't I don't want to know that no I know and I don't and I know and I only I'm only I'm don't really believe that most of the time I'm just it is probably entirely true but it's just like it's it's it's part of this like unspoken relationship that we have where it's just like I don't care that you don't
believe it sometimes but I think my favorite artists are the ones who really do believe it or maybe I'm just HP also happy to but it's art you know what I mean it's art it's art it's the world of imagination so I was very interested in deconstructing Persona and I iconography and tearing that down and putting it
back together because that's what I've done in inside my whole life right but I don't I'm not just I'm just personally not that interested in it at this moment it's not to say I won't Circle back into it but I'm not really into it I'm just I'm I'm sort of like cut to the Bone talk about what is real for you
what's actually real um even if it's the ugly parts of yourself music shouldn't tell anybody what to do or what to think or how to live of like the best thing I can do is try to make excellent what I think of as like excellent work and hope that in doing so it reaches people and they take it however they want to take
it truly however they want however they want to take it whatever it means to them is wonderful and it means something to their lives and like that that feels generous to me that feels honest that feels authentic to me as far as a show you know I I think a show should take people to heaven and hell I think a show
is a show show is a show I don't think a show is you're going to set yourself on fire on stage um you know what it's funny as is I was doing like a lot of this is a great moment in my relationship with St Vincent right here I just straight-faced asked St Vincent you know said your set yourself on fire on stage is it you know what I I
wouldn't not but I no but because the truth is that I'm like you know imaginative and an AR and all this stuff but I'm also incredibly pragmatic and kind of cheap so as we were doing um the uh you know promo stuff and the video and all this where that does involve fire I was like well I'm so down to just
set myself on fire but it turned out it was a lot more expensive pyro between that and like the outfit and the thing I was like no I it's really hot on fashion too yeah no it you have to you can't aesthetically look the way hot on fashion figured how to look fabulous and burn exactly and we know which one you're
choosing sorry I mean I'm just going to call It Fabulous every time the burning bless well but but I did look into it it was just it didn't make dollars and cents you know what I mean why are you on fire on the cover I worked with my friend Alex Corte um who's just one of my be best people in the world that I know another one of
these just like Angels um he is an incredible modern artist we first met when he did New York video so I played him the record and then the next day we went to the prto and we saw if you've ever been to the prao and walked in and one The Garden of Earthly Delights was there like the full trip tick not like two
parts of it like I saw in Berlin one time but the full tripti and it's I mean that's like I used to go my great aunt had The Garden of Earthly Delights you know a little print in her bathroom I used like go and stare at it and like I've been obsessed with that forever so we got to actually see it it's like that Kier enthusiasm when he
keeps he learns the uh Declaration of Independence while he's peeing and and then it comes up in that play he's like I really got to go am I crazy is I think Larry David's right most of the time right is that yeah unfortunately so CU he's the most unlikable human on the planet so you want to talk about a Ros test on human
beings the fact that we're finding this funny and remotely relatable is say an enormous amount about I know I'm like he's he's kind 99% of the time that's the genius of why he does it right cuz he Roots it in a factual situation but then he takes it to the just the most mind crunching destructive high
frequency my favorite part of that show is Susie esman costume design catch me cfan are you kidding me catch what about when she's there when she's got those that outfit when she's looking at the billboard for the first time it's just all kinds of SN skin it's like eight different versions of Snak skin because
we know that lady right like we just we know her I love it so much I mean it's like the boots are not matching the trousers and it's but it's it's all it's like she went to different snakes skinned Distributors and got different types of snake skin oh she's so good and how she goes from zero to 100 yourself you back to zero which
is so good my favorite the one that she does every now and then well she'll just be like hi Larry what the is wrong with you okay bye l call me and she brings it back to lightwe friends again so good little secret little secret third I derailed us but I'd like to bring more than happy to derail let's
land the plane let's land This Plane so Alex and I yeah we're at the pra in Madrid and we go see goya's black paintings and these are paintings that Goya had in his house and you walking it gets like 15° colder in this room and it's love Saturn eating his sons with this crazy look in his eye and it's like the witch's black mass and it's
just like minimal light on these paintings you're in it it's ghoulish hellish black and white and uh Alex and I just sort of looked at each other and we're like yeah like this this is the this is the energy it's a little bit um at imagine you probably felt and I'm just guessing based on what we talked about that it maybe took you a little
bit back to that 93rd take of Rec where you're like okay I'm in it yeah we all know our our own little private Hells but we get to be alive so we got to do it so why did you set yourself on fire in that within that inspired environment of infinite violent Darkness if I discovered that in my in my brother's
record collection at the age of eight I would put it on and in my pants thank you that's the review that's the closest thing to a German review you get out of me fire means a lot of things I mean it's Phoenix From the Ashes it's self emulation it's this can't start a fire without a spark you know the history of the idea
of of of fire is obviously deep and mythological I on fire in a black void listen to the album it's coming out April 26 on Apple music fun for the whole family so true I just wanted I Wish I Still did voiceovers for like British terrestrial television I would have Rewritten the script on that one I know are you
looking for a Dark Void to said fire yourself to my last question for you today yeah yeah is um we were talking about about the end of things and you've stared at that for a while and made a record out of that experience and and come to terms with it as a reality cuz whatever comes next will be a whole
different version of that that's one thing we know about life right what's your relationship like now with the future and and and how you move forward and has it has it broadened your perspective of what's possible do you think you'll carry that reality with you and has it has it altered the way that you approach like
when you're young it's just you're younger it's like it's ambitious everything is possible most of the time you're not even really focusing enough to enjoy it right so now that you've seen that it's it's precious and it is what it is I guess my question to you just just today not like next week for a time sure what does the future feel like
to you what does life feel like to you the remainder of your life I think it feels like spending time with people I love and making work that I think is excellent and that's kind of it it's kind of that's kind of it you know seems like a perfect equation to me I'm super lucky to be whatever this is seven solar
records and and people care now than more than they did you know at the beginning so yeah thanks for coming in you are pleasure always like a genuine one well the best thing I can say if if if you take this the way it's intended is that um I listened to the album multiple times and then decided to not prepare
anything because I just knew we would sit down and wherever it would go would be really really interesting to me and I would learn a bunch of stuff so in many respects I'm the synthesizer of this conversation running questions through a circuit board with little to no algorithmic assistance we've gone full circle goodbye