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Claudio Sanchez

Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images

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Coheed And Cambria's Claudio Sanchez Talks Comics, Kurt Vonnegut & What's Next For 'The Amory Wars'

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The hard-rocking frontman goes deep on Coheed's multi-dimensional storytelling, attempting to play D&D, his first-ever live music experiences and more
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Sep 11, 2019 - 11:32 am

Coheed and Cambria don't simply make albums, they create musical and lyrical universes. Specifically surrounding the story of The Amory Wars—sci-fi-ish storylines that mesh with comics, books, videos and visuals to create a linear through-line among nearly all the band's albums. If that sounds like a Pink Floyd or RUSH fan's dream, maybe; but it’s also captivating for the everyperson who likes their rock heady and multi-dimensional. As evidenced on nine albums since 2002's The Second Stage Turbine Blade debut, Coheed and Cambria's unique conceptual approach can be grandiose but never pompous; poppy but never lightweight, creative but never unwieldy.

Comprised of Claudio Sanchez (vocals/guitar), Travis Stever (guitar), Josh Eppard (drums) and Zach Cooper (bass), the band began in Nyack, New York in 1995. Driven by Sanchez's fully realized tales, CandC's latest album, 2018's cinematic Vaxis—Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures, debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Albums chart and Top 15 on the Billboard 200 chart. The record kicks off with a spare piano and a spooky spoken-word "Prologue" that sets up the chant-along rocker "The Dark Sentencer," delving into gems like the pop-tastic "Old Flames" before concluding its 78-minute journey with the gentle guitar/vocals/strings "Lucky Stars."

The Recording Academy caught up with down-to-earth frontman via phone from the Brooklyn apartment he shares with his wife (and frequent collaborator) Chondra Echert and son Atlas Hendrix. The conversation ranged from his 100-year-old grandfather (a.k.a. Beep Beep) to Kraftwerk to Dio to co-sleeping. And, drum roll, please—Sanchez also revealed a brand-new CandC endeavor that will thrill fans.

Since all your songs and albums have such storylines, as a kid in school, what kind of writing were you doing; was English your best subject?

No, not really. It wasn't until I picked up a guitar that I actually started to write. My imagination was always very alive. Certainly when music was acting as the soundtrack to [words], whether it was like a mundane car ride with my mother or father, whatever was playing on the radio would conjure up visuals in my mind, whether superheroes or science fiction characters, I would always pictures, scenes, as long as the song was really strong, you know?

At that age, what were you reading?

I think it was mostly comic books. I wasn't the most active participant in school, putting it nicely. I did well, though; I did enough to, to pacify my parents. I wasn't a bad kid or anything. But for the most part I liked the story telling told in other mediums, whether it was movies, video games, or the ones that I would construct with action figures. Comics were a big one. I would frequent shops on the Wednesdays when new things would come out, Batman or whatever. When I got into high school, Kurt Vonnegut was a big one. I actually remember when I bought my first edition, at the used book store in Nyack. Slaughterhouse Five. I remember looking at the cover and seeing that it had two titles and being totally intrigued by that. I forget… the First Crusade or something? It was like Slaughterhouse Five or Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah. [The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death.] So from there to Breakfast Of Champions [(or Goodbye Blue Mondays)].

The two-title thing explains a lot about you now in Coheed! No one-word titles!

[Laughs.] No way!

You mentioned that a job you had as a teen really spurred the music and lyrics of what became Coheed and Cambria.

Yes, my pet store job, just 'cause the guys there allowed me to do what I needed to do to allow the band to grow. You know, they gave me the weekends off when I needed them. Working in that store inspired a lot of like little details within the Amory Wars, the Coheed story. Like the name of the solar system that the actual story takes place on is called the Keywork after the guys that own the store. I named the solar system after them. I chose the color of the interlocking theme of Keywork to be blue because I worked on fish tanks, and they'd have these blue backdrops. The main villain I named after one of the managers because he actually said, "Hey, if you ever do make this story, I want to be your villain." The fact that he sort of believed in me, that I would actually make this thing … So I named the character after him.

I know it was in Paris where you first created the Coheed and Cambria characters and more. Was it the city itself that that was influential or was it just being out of your normal environment?

I think it was a little bit of both. I went to Paris for about a month to visit a girlfriend at the time. I had never been that far away from home. Jersey was probably the furthest distance I'd traveled, literally, and here I was at 18, ready to hit Europe, with really no idea what to expect. Once I got there, the architecture had a lot to do with maybe feeling like I was in an alien environment. Originally the story with the title The Bag On Line Adventures Adventures of Coheed and Cambria after the bag shop I was living across the street from. I thought that that was appropriate because I was traveling and, you know, sort of the wild things that would come out of your bag.

Even though the bags had nothing to do with the story, there was just something about the shop that made sense to me. I loosely based the characters of Coheed and Cambria after myself and my significant other at that moment. But as I started to really write songs and flesh out the ideas of the story, Coheed and Cambria really started to take on the likenesses of my mother and father. And it really became like a science fiction story about my family; that's where all the little details from life started to spill into it. Like the pet store stuff. The Amory Wars; Amory is actually the road I lived on. And 78 planets of Heaven's Fence was actually taken from the year I was born, 1978. There's a lot of symbolism in the real story that sort of resides behind the science fiction.

Claudio Sanchez's Songwriting Changed

As so much of your art is interconnected; is it possible for people to just listen to the music and not even be aware of the books and comics, and vice versa?

I love that it can be consumed in any way; the consumer can choose how to ingest it. When it comes to the music side of things, I try not to force the concept. The themes are there. But I also want it to feel universal because it is, it's coming from someplace very, very deep, very real. I want it to feel in a way separate, but if you were to conjoin it with the comics, then there's a whole other experience. And vice-versa. It does happen at comic conventions where someone will come to the booth and say something like, "I really enjoy this story." And then wonder what the T-shirts are. Then they’re like, "Oh, wait a second, this is a band?" Sometimes that'll happen. You know, clearly the band is definitely the fuel for everything, but it does have its own legs in the other sort of dimension of the whole thing. I'm really all for however you want to perceive it. It's totally fine.

So releasing a single from the middle of an album is OK by you?

I don't think there's anything wrong with listening to the one song outside of the context of the whole. I've had a magic of watching MTV as a kid; the television that you would like turn the dial and instead of the remote! I remember seeing Madonna's "Material Girl." Michael Jackson's "Beat It." I didn't need to know that there was anything else. That was enough for me and I wanted to hear it over and over again! I get that sort of that method of consuming music.

Of course, Pink Floyd's The Wall and Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime are conceptual landmarks. What did you dig?

My first year of high school, that's when I started to go to concerts. My first two concerts were really, I think, what cemented me into the idea of this much bigger story in terms of music. The first one was Sabbath at the Beacon Theater with Dio fronting. This is my first concert. I didn't even know that the live sort of thing… I mean, I think I even know that was a thing! I went and I was like, "Wow, this is amazing the way the lights are interacting with the band." Then my second one was Pink Floyd on the Division Bell tour. That's when I started to fall down the rabbit hole of progressive rock and conceptual albums and things like that. ‘Cause after that it was The Wall, Dark Side [of the Moon], Animals. Again, just watching the visuals and music interact with each live, but even the myth of playing Wizard Of Oz against Dark Side, you know. Of course I tried it!

I read a while ago where Mark Wahlberg and his production company had interest in Amory Wars as a live-action film. What happened with that? Are there any other projects related to that universe?

Yeah, the Mark Wahlberg agreement expired, so nothing really happened with it. But at the moment we are working with an animation company on turning the Amory Wars into either a full-length animation or sort of a serial animation. We're in the process of that, as well as looking to adapt the stories into board games.

Wow! That's exciting.

You know, I notice our fanbase will sometimes come to the shows early, and I wanted like to do something that will get them involved with each other in these moments. I thought board games was an interesting thing, or even card games, these legacy card games a la Magic [The Gathering], you know? At the moment that's what we're in the middle of.

Did you play Dungeons and Dragons?

I tried. I did. The thing is, I played it a couple of times before I moved, and really enjoyed it, but then I could never find people to play with again. Like I'm pretty socially awkward. I have a hard time meeting people. I really do. I'm really horrible at that.

Aww. Well, any Coheed and Cambria game endeavor has so many ways it could go…

I'd want to do something really cool like either being part of the events of the story or maybe multiple games that are the events of the story. But I'm very excited. I think it's a really cool time to be a Coheed fan ‘cause all of these sort of things are percolating. I know that the fan base really desired something on another platform. I'm really excited for the animation. I think it could be really cool. So we're just sort of working our way through all the details and trying to put together the team that makes the most sense to really bring it to life.

Do you think it could be out as early 2020?

Oh, that might be a little too early. We haven't announced the actual partner, so we're just still trying to get that piece in place before we actually announce.

Alice In Chains' Jerry Cantrell Is Just Happy To Be Nominated (For The Ninth Time)

Rosehardt & Lauren Ruth Ward

Rosehardt & Lauren Ruth Ward

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Quarantine Diaries: Rosehardt Is Playing His New Piano & Lauren Ruth Ward Is Dancing To Emo Music

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As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rock the music industry, GRAMMY.com reached out to musicians to see how they were spending their days off the road
GRAMMYs
Nov 19, 2020 - 1:08 pm

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rock the music industry, GRAMMY.com reached out to a few musicians to see how they were spending their days indoors. Today, we have a special bi-costal edition, with Brooklyn-based Rosehardt and Los Angeles-based Lauren Ruth Ward, two artists featured in Dr. Martens Presents: Music & Film Series, sharing their Quarantine Diaries.

Rosehardt & Lauren Ruth Ward

Rosehardt, Brooklyn

[8:45 a.m.] On occasion, I'll wake up and my hair will be shampoo commercial voluminous. I don't try and explain it, I just show gratitude by continuing to care for it like my mama taught me.

GRAMMYs

[9:30 a.m.] We made cold-seared salmon last night. Hella tasty. I put the leftovers into an omelet. Also hella tasty. Additionally, if one can have toast with jam with breakfast, and one can also have toast with peanut butter with breakfast, then logically one can have a PB&J with breakfast. Don't @ me.

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[12 p.m.] Today was a very special day.

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[12:05 p.m.] A very, very special day.

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[12:45 p.m.] Not only did the American people make the right choice at the voting booths, but I became the proud owner of this gorgeous piano. It was given to me by the sweetest woman from Craigslist (!!!).

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[1 p.m.] Seriously, if you want a piano and have room, peruse the free section on CL, you'd be surprised. I was so tremendously fortunate to not only find this piano in amazing shape, but I couldn't have asked for a better CL experience. Her only stipulation was that it went to someone who would put it to use and das me. Thank you, Julia from Craigslist.

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[1:30 p.m.] This is my cat Ishmael. I don't usually let him in the studio but I was feeling gracious and he was meowing incessantly.

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[4:45 p.m.] This is Alex, the mysterious piano tuner my roommate recommended who not only does a great job tuning, but always obliges when asked to play a little when he's finished. I really wish you could hear this photo.

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[5 p.m.] I plunked around on the beauty for a minute and now it's loaf time. Ish loves loaf time. We all love loaf time.

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Lauren Ruth Ward, Los Angeles

[8 a.m.] Wake up and caffeinate. We have an espresso machine with a milk steamer, the whole shebang.

[8:15 a.m.] Check in. Look at my calendar and make sure my schedule is realistic. My friend Emma and I call ourselves The Over-Committers Committee (lol). I drink my coffee on my porch, sometimes journal and send out confirmation texts to hair clients and anyone I have plans with.

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[8:30 a.m.] I pull myself away from my phone—I have a timer on my social apps to keep me from mindlessly scrolling! Depending on the day, I will do Patreon duties, Pullstring Vintage work or merch fulfillment. All of these are truly exciting and inspiring.

On Patreon, I post behind-the-scenes videos, and photos on my private Instagram. I also chat with fans about their week and if they relate to what I've shared. This kind of connection with them has kept me sane. I also get to "see" two of my Patron tiers monthly on a Zoom hang. I also spend this time prepping monthly mail-out incentives.

Pullstring Vintage is my new baby! After a buying trip, I wash all the items. Some need extra love—bleaching, tie-dying, studding or button, hem or zipper repair. Then, I take photos of all garments with my friend Zoë. Prior to posting, I take measurement photos and create descriptions for each garment. I then post and repost and chat with my sweet vintage-loving supporters. On drop days, I stay tethered to my assistant, Ivy, who takes care of sales via DM. Mondays and Fridays are post office days. I put thank you letters and pressed flowers go into every package (I love this part). We then DM everyone their tracking number along with another thank you.

Merch fulfillment! I sell 14 different items on Bandcamp. They have slightly different packaging processes but everything gets autographed, thank you carded and, you guessed it, pressed flowers from my garden.

GRAMMYs

[12 p.m.] After tapping in and out of the above worlds, it's usually lunchtime. I'll have a little something and then exercise! I love walking a couple miles while listening to podcasts (Brené Brown) or audiobooks (currently spinning the autobiography of Malcolm X). Or, if I have less time, I'll turn the heat up in my living room and freestyle yoga with dance and ab work integrated. I always do this to screamo/pop rock bands' albums, something I listened to in high school. Yesterday was Decadence by Head Automatica—totally holds up. If I have even less time, I'll freestyle dance in my front yard for three to four songs—quick and life-changing.

On other days, this is prime haircut time. I prefer to cut in the hours of 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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[3:30 p.m.] As I mentioned, on Mondays and Fridays I go to the post office (where I am helped by either Ernie, Adora or Stanley). Other days I'll have a golden light, front yard hang with a friend.

[5 p.m.] I kiss my dog for the seventieth time today.

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[6 p.m.] Pandemic life: make dinner, sometimes simple, sometimes elaborate. I prep snacks and juice my Imperfect Foods produce for the week. Then I hang/watch TV/read/after-dinner walk with my partner. Sometimes we'll have a guest or two over for a drink and a porch hang. Living the dream!

GRAMMYs

Days where I have no clients and no pending orders, I either aimlessly craft or I write. Song messages come to me unplanned—this is my way of planning those unplanned creative spurts. I work on songs alone and sometimes with bandmates. The day will go as follows: coffee, podcast while I walk, then get together with either Eduardo for LRW band, Chris for Aging Actress or Andrew for Heaven Electric.

These days are few and usually clumped together. Because I released an album in March and because the music industry has slowed down immensely, I've been treating writing less militantly and been allowing myself to explore other passions.

GRAMMYs

De'Wayne Talks "Top Gun," Jimi Hendrix & Radiohead, Finding Himself In L.A.

GRAMMYs

PJ Harvey and John Parish perform at Primavera Sound Festival in 2016

Photo by Jordi Vidal/Redferns

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PJ Harvey's Lost Album: John Parish Discusses 1996 Gem 'Dance Hall At Louse Point'

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On the occasion of its recent reissue, we tracked down John Parish to talk about 'Dance Hall At Louse Point' and his earliest memories of meeting PJ Harvey as an ambitious teenager
Zach Schonfeld
GRAMMYs
Nov 10, 2020 - 10:19 am

PJ Harvey rarely looks back. The songwriter’s career has been defined by a restless sense of reinvention, each album cycle accompanied by a fresh persona—the blues roar of To Bring You My Love, or the glossy alt-rock romance of Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea—ready to be discarded at the next creative whim.

But 2020 has been an exception. Harvey has spent much of the year rolling out a vinyl reissue series of her back catalog, along with some accompanying demo albums. The latest vinyl reissue is something of an outlier: Dance Hall At Louse Point, Harvey’s abrasive 1996 collaboration with ex-bandmate John Parish. Harvey and Parish had first met in the late 1980s, when she joined his band Automatic Dlamini. In 1996, they combined Parish’s musical demos and Harvey’s lyrics on an album that would plunge the singer-songwriter into an avant-garde realm of disturbing monologues and banshee-wail vocals.

Credited to John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey, Dance Hall was largely overshadowed at the time by the immense success of To Bring You My Love. In retrospect, it’s an underrated gem and something of a lost album in Harvey’s catalog; as Harvey herself later acknowledged, "People don't even count that, yet that's the record I'm really proud of."

On the occasion of the album’s recent reissue, I tracked down John Parish to talk about the album’s unusual backstory and his earliest memories of meeting Harvey as an ambitious teenager. Since then, Parish has co-produced most of the singer’s solo albums, and in 2009, the pair reunited for a second collaborative record. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

At the time you made Dance Hall At Louse Point, you had already known Polly for a number of years. What was your first impression when you first met her in the '80s?

She was like 17 when I first met her. She was coming to see my band, Automatic Dlamini, whenever we played in her local area. We all got to chatting after a gig. A mutual friend introduced us, and then she gave me a couple of cassettes of some of her early songs she’d been writing. They were kind of like folk songs at that time, really. But her voice—it was already there. It was fully formed at that age.

I just thought, "That girl’s got a really good voice, I’m gonna see if she wants to join the band." So I just asked her. When she finished school, she came and joined the band and she played with us for the next three years, before she formed the first PJ Harvey trio.

Was there a moment when you first realized, "This person is extraordinarily talented, oh my God."

I mean, I obviously saw something that was really good there; otherwise I wouldn’t have asked her to join the band. You can’t possibly predict how somebody’s going to develop as an artist. I could see that she had the potential to be great. If I said, "Oh, I knew she was going to be a star"—obviously nobody can know those kinds of things.

Do you have any favorite memories of working with Polly in Automatic Dlamini?

She came in at a point when the original lineup was kind of falling apart. I was rebuilding a lineup, and she was an absolutely fundamental part of that. She’s always had an old head on young shoulders. She was somebody that you could talk to and discuss pretty serious issues. As a teenager, she was very serious. And was quite capable of being able to offer good advice. We started relying on each other.

Was she nervous performing onstage with the band when she first joined?

The first couple of shows, yeah, really nervous. As you would be. But no, she got used to it pretty fast.

Tell me about the origin story for Dance Hall At Louse Point. My understanding is that you wrote those songs while on tour with Polly for To Bring You My Love?

That’s semi-right. It was Polly’s idea. It was after Rid Of Me, before she had started To Bring You My Love. I was teaching a performing arts course at a local college. I’d written some music for a theater production, and Polly came along to see it. She absolutely loved the music, and said afterwards, "Would you write me some music in that kind of vein? That I could try writing words to?" I said, "OK, that would be great."

That’s how we had the idea for the album. I was writing the music for Dance Hall At Louse Point at the same time she was writing the music for To Bring You My Love. I then became involved with [To Bring You My Love], which was obviously a big record. And it involved a big tour as well. Took 18 months of our time. While we were on tour for To Bring You My Love, that’s when Polly wrote all the words. She already had a cassette of the music for the Dance Hall record, which she carried around with her on the tour and then wrote lyrics in different cities. Which is why those cities are referenced on the album sleeve.

Were you hearing her lyrics while she was writing them? Or were you both working in your own separate worlds?

She would sort of drop a cassette into my hotel room and say, "I've got some lyrics for this song." I'd hear them as they were coming in. It was always kind of, "Here you go, here's the lyrics." And it would always be completely done. It was very exciting.

I was reading some old interviews with Polly. There’s one where she describes that record as being a huge turning point for her. What do you think she meant by that?

It’s always difficult to talk about how that is for somebody else. My take on that is—and I know this from myself when I’m writing in collaboration with somebody else—it’s a certain freedom you have that you don’t give yourself if you're writing entirely individually, because you have the weight of the whole thing. When you can share the weight, it eases you up to do things you might be nervous about doing yourself, because you’re not sure whether you’ve gone off a stupid tangent and you’re not seeing it.

You can try those things that might seem kind of wayward. And you have another person that you rely on say, "Oh yeah, that’s great. Push it a bit further." Like I said before, she approaches most things very seriously. Writing particularly so. So I think it probably enabled her to be a bit more wayward than she might have been. When I first heard her vocal idea for "Taut," I mean—the entire delivery of the song was kind of extreme.

Which song are you referring to?

I’m referring to "Taut." Which is quite an extreme performance. A lot of the songs, I would give her a title. So I gave her the title "Taut." She didn’t have to use it if she didn’t want to. Some of the titles she used; some she didn’t. But I think it was also quite freeing to suddenly have a word or a line and say, "What are you gonna come up with for that?"

I’m assuming Polly thinks the same. She might have a totally different reason for saying that was a turning point. It could also be that, up until that point, the lyrics she had been writing—you know, Rid Of Me and Dry—were very personal lyrics. Or they could be read in a personal way, couldn’t they? Louse Point was very much stories and scenarios. You weren’t imagining that Polly was talking about herself in the bulk of those songs.

The vocal performance on "City Of No Sun" is also quite extreme and very jarring. Were you taken aback by her approach to singing this material?

I was a bit surprised. In a good way. I thought it was really exciting. I remember the performance of "City Of No Sun" when we were in the studio. She said, "OK, I’ll record the quiet bits first, then I’ll do the loud bits." So she had the engineer set the levels, doing the quiet bits. It’s quite strange timing in that song, to get everything to line up. She hit the chorus; she had two or three go’s and she kept getting it wrong.

At one point, she got it wrong again and she was so annoyed that she just went straight into the loud bit anyway. We had the mic set to be recording this really quiet vocal, so all the needles shot way into the red. It was on tape, which can really compress those kinds of things.

Is that the performance that is actually on the record? You can hear how it sounds a bit distorted.

Yeah. Because it’s absolutely pushing everything. She didn't mean to record it like that, but it just sounded so great. Of course we kept it.

Whose idea was it to cover "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee?

It was initially done because they needed it for this film [Basquiat]. We really liked the way it came out, so we thought, "Oh, it kind of fits on the record." The recording that’s on the album is actually the first time we’d ever played that song. There were no rehearsals. We didn’t really know what we were going to do. Mick Harvey played the organ, I played drums, and Polly sang.

Obviously, most of her albums are credited to PJ Harvey. On this album, she's Polly Jean Harvey. What do you think is the significance of her changing her billing?

That was absolutely her call. I think she was quite protective of me. She very much said, "I want it to be called John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey, not the other way around." It’s difficult, isn’t it, if you’re an established artist and you suddenly work with someone who’s unknown, or de facto unknown. It’s like, "Oh, PJ Harvey and some bloke" kind of thing. I think she was trying to find the best way of making people realize that it wasn’t another PJ Harvey album. I know that later on, when we did the second collaboration, it was PJ Harvey and John Parish. It in some ways made more sense, but you’re never quite sure how you should go about those things when you’re doing them.

Some articles I’ve read state that the record label, Island, was uncomfortable with the album and believed it to be "commercial suicide." Is there any truth to that?

I’m sure there were people at Island who were a little bit unnerved by it. And by the fact that it was coming out not as a PJ Harvey record, but under a different name, when To Bring You My Love had just been such a relatively commercial success for PJ Harvey. Probably somebody said it was commercial suicide. If they really thought that, I doubt they would have put it out. I think they didn’t really know what it was.

I have to give quite a lot of credit to Polly’s manager, Paul McGuinness. I think if he hadn’t been behind it, perhaps Island Records wouldn’t have gone for it. But Paul heard it and he was like, "This is a really good record." Obviously he had a lot of clout and a lot of credibility with Island.

During this period, Polly was also becoming successful very quickly. Perhaps she was overwhelmed by the expectations from the record label or the degree of media scrutiny. Do you think those factors contributed to her desire to separate herself from the PJ Harvey that people knew?

You’d probably have to ask her. My take would be that it’s not quite as thought-through as that. She doesn’t like to repeat herself. The last thing she would have wanted to do at that time would have been To Bring You My Love 2. Her gut reaction is to try and do something different each time. Which is why I think she’s had such a long, successful career. I think there was a lot of pressure after the first album, Dry—the record company didn’t like Rid Of Me. They didn’t want to have this Steve Albini-recorded, very hard-hitting album. They were hoping for something more commercial, like I would have said Dry was.

If you are able to reinvent yourself each time—which, obviously a lot of artists just don’t have that facility—if you can, it sets you up for a much longer, more interesting career.

The album title refers to a painting. How did the title present itself to you or to Polly?

I was, and I still am, a very big fan of the painting Rosy-Fingered Dawn At Louse Point by [William] de Kooning. I told you I was giving Polly some of the songs I gave her with titles. One of them, which she ended up not writing any lyrics to—the title track from the album—is an instrumental. That was just a title I gave it. There was something about a place called "Louse Point" that sounded sort of desolate and rather unappealing, and I just thought a dance hall—I just liked the atmosphere that the title [suggested].

How would you describe this album’s long-term legacy in Polly’s career? Do you think it’s overdue for more attention?

I mean, I know it’s seemed like there’s a hardcore group of fans that like it very much. In the U.K. and Europe, there were a lot of people [who] liked it pretty much straight away. Perhaps in America it took a little bit longer to find its home. Obviously we never came over, played any shows, did anything in the U.S. at the time of its release. A lot of people talk to me about it 23, 24 years after its release and say they love it very much. I guess it has its fans for sure.

Once this reissue campaign is over, do you think we can expect a new album from Polly next year?

Umm… I don’t know. I can’t really answer that.

Are there any more previously unreleased demos, like the Dry demos, that fans can look forward to as part of this reissue campaign?

Nearly all the albums will come with accompanying demos. Probably the only ones that won’t are our two collaborative albums—the demos would all be instrumental versions of the album, because that’s how we went about it.

What can you tell me about the demos for Is This Desire?

Well, there’s a demo version of "The Garden," which I really, really love. Had it been down to me, I would have said "Put the demo version on the album" when the record came out. Because I just think it’s one of Polly’s greatest demos. Generally, I like the demos for Is This Desire? a lot.

And the b-sides from that record as well—"Sweeter Than Anything," "Nina in Ecstasy." I think there are some really extraordinary songs that didn’t make it onto the proper album.

You and me both. I think "Nina In Ecstasy" should have been on the record. That was my favorite track of the whole set of demos. So I was very disappointed that that didn't make it onto the album.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that track should have been on there. Will those b-sides be included with the reissue package?

Not the initial reissue package, because it’s literally the album plus demos of the album. I might be wrong, but I think there might be some kind of b-sides and rarities thing to come out as another package at some point down the line.

Will you also be reissuing the more recent albums, like Let England Shake and The Hope Six Demolition Project?

I think Hope Six is still available anyway. So I don’t think there’s any point in reissuing that. But I think everything that was unavailable is being made available.

Has Polly herself been very involved in preparing these reissues and overseeing everything?

No, I think she’s delegated to people like me or Head. And she’s delegated the artwork; it’s all the people that did it originally who are working on it again. She’s very good at [delegating].

I’ve always gotten the sense she doesn’t like to dwell on her past work. She’s more interested in doing something new.

As all creative artists should be, I think.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, The Honorable Music Lover

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[From left]: Bartees Strange, Anjimile and Jordana Nye. Photos courtesy of Julia Leiby, Maren Celest & Grand Jury Music

News

Bartees Strange, Anjimile & More On What It's Like To Release A Debut Album In A Pandemic

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A variety of rising artists sit down to discuss the unusual and inopportune circumstances of releasing a debut record during COVID, and what it takes to make the best of an impossible situation
Mike Hilleary
GRAMMYs
Oct 27, 2020 - 1:36 pm

Video-chatting through her phone, Wichita-based singer/songwriter Jordana Nye shows me a tattoo she recently got on her right forearm. Written in small red ink is a single word: "numb." "I feel like I've just been kind of numb throughout the whole thing—like my tattoo," she says. Laughing at herself, almost as an aside, she quickly adds, "The decisions you make when you're in quarantine."

The "whole thing" Nye is referencing is of course the increasingly fragile state of the music industry as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a global health crisis that has in just a few short months forced the closure of concert venues across the country, the cancelation of festivals and tours, and manifested an overwhelming sense of uncertainty for the untold number of musical artists that make recording and performing songs their livelihood. While established, high-profile acts such as Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, and BTS are fully capable of releasing a new album in the middle of a volatile and complicated environment and experience little to no impact on their financial bottom line and cultural cachet, those like Nye, who only just made her first steps into the industry with the release of her debut album Classical Notions of Happiness in March, are finding themselves mentally and professionally hobbled at the exact moment they are trying to introduce themselves to the greater music listening community.

In addition to Nye (who has followed Classical Notions of Happiness with the EP Something to Say and has a second EP … To You scheduled for release in December), a variety of rising artists, including Christian Lee Hutson (Beginners), Anjimile (Giver Taker), Bartees Strange's Bartees Cox Jr. (Live Forever), and Nation of Language frontman Ian Devaney (introduction, Prescence) all sat down to discuss the unusual and inopportune circumstances of releasing a debut record during COVID, and what it takes to make the best of an impossible situation.

The Initial Shock

Jordana Nye: I kind of went through like the worst depression. I mean, you just gotta keep swimming. It's hard to sometimes. But you get medicine, get therapy, talk about stuff. That's what I did, and it helped a lot. I couldn't even do anything for maybe three months straight. It was the worst.

Ian Devaney: It was kind of disbelief, especially when I realized how long it would go on and I realized what that would do to small and mid-sized venues. I was like, even when we do come back from this, the landscape is just gonna be so totally different. What does this mean as far as these businesses as independent hubs in the community? But my brain also just zoomed out to the corporate consolidation of touring above the D.I.Y. level basically. Are the only people who are going to be able to keep their venues open the ones who aren't as artist-friendly?

Bartees Cox Jr.: After we released my EP Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy, it was crazy. We got invited to play this WNYC soundcheck live show thing on March 12. And then we also had a show in New York on March 13. And this was when the shit was really going down in New York. And we were there, we played the thing, and we were all like, "Dang, this looks like it's gonna get really serious." And then after the EP came out, my team and I were like, "Well, do we just not do anything for a year and a half? We have momentum now. We should just ride this and keep writing." And that was just it, let's just follow the wave. It's working right now. So why why stop, you know?

Read More: Anjimile Opens Up On 'Giver Taker,' Sobriety, Identifying As Trans & More

The Road Is Closed

Christian Lee Hutson: Just from my perspective, the thing that seems to help debut artists the most is supporting other artists on tour, and that element has been completely taken out of the picture. Having your name tied to whatever the act is you're opening for and getting a chance to be in front of new people that might not have heard you on whatever streaming playlist, that aspect is probably the most damaging.

Ian Devaney: I've always been someone who feels like Nation of Language captures more people through the live show. And so when it became clear that we weren't going to be touring for a long time, I was like, "Oh, I guess we're doomed. I guess we'll put these things out and maybe some people listen to them, and then it will just fade away and we'll get on with the next thing and wait. But I was very shocked and flattered that the record started doing much better than I ever thought. That was very exciting. I feel very grateful for that.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I'm glad that we put Live Forever out now, instead of right at the beginning of the pandemic, because I don't think people knew what the f**k was going on in March. I saw some bands, put some records out that were really good in February and January who had huge tours booked all summer. I feel like this really hit them in the chest. That just takes so much like gas and energy out of you.

Ian Devaney: We were three shows into a tour, when they were like, "OK, everyone has to go home." It wasn't just disbelief that a dangerous thing was happening, but disbelief from the whiplash of the fact that we were about to be on the road for a month. But now, I'm back in my apartment. There was confusion and then, yeah, just real sadness of not knowing when I'm gonna get to do this again.

Christian Lee Hutson: Doing my first real headline tour, that was supposed to happen. I was supposed to on it right now, actually. In June I was also going to tour with one of my favorite bands, The Magnetic Fields. I was excited to spend a month with them. Those are two things I feel like, "Oh, man, those would have been cool." And hopefully, in a world where we're safer, those things can still happen.

Read More: Bartees Strange On 'Live Forever' & Why "It Shouldn't Be Weird To See Black Rock Bands"

Ian Devaney: I was really looking forward to playing the Seattle show on our canceled tour. KEXP seemed like the first radio station that consistently was reaching out to us and playing us on a regular basis, and we kind of developed a close relationship with them. And to me they've always been sort of one of the gatekeepers of like, "Oh, I'm in this level now. KEXP knows about my band." And so, them just being excited for us to come and us getting the sense that people just driving around in their cars during the day were hearing our music—and that being such a strange thing to wrap our heads around—it felt like we were gonna show up and be like, "We've arrived."

Jordana Nye: I was going on my first tour. I felt unprepared. I was also really nervous. And then when the COVID stuff started, there was a surreal moment where I was like, "What? I was just about to do something that could impact my life in such a big way and now it's gone." I was told there was gonna be hotels.

Christian Lee Hutson: Not touring is a huge change in my life in general. I've been touring with other people or just on my own for the last 11 years in my life. So to not do it at the one time I've finally released an album and not be doing it feels hilarious.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I keep telling myself, "It's just delayed. You will get to play the record for years. It will always exist." It won't be the same, but I also think when shows open up, people are gonna be really hyped to go to shows. The bottom line is, it'll be okay. Again, I have no choice. It's hard to like dwell on that. I knew that would be the case, before I put it out.

Fiscal Feasibility

Anjimile: I would describe it as not an ideal time, but I also have never monetized like my music career in a major way. It's not like, "Oh, no, all this money I usually make is gone!" [Laughs.]

Christian Lee Hutson: My wife and I are both living on unemployment and savings right now and just kind of hold on as long as we can, just hoping that touring can come back before we're in a crippling amount of debt.

Ian Devaney: The unemployment insurance is currently supporting me. When we left for tour the restaurant I was working at I said, "I understand if you won't have a space to me when I get back," but they were like, "We I think we'll be able to work the schedule," and I thought, "Perfect." But then the reason we came back was because everything was shutting down. And so I got an email suggesting we should all file for an appointment, and we'll see what happens.

Jordana Nye: At least I have my job back in Wichita. I work at a brewing company called Norton's. They're super involved in live music and it's a great place. I was like a barback during the summer. And now I'm a dishwasher. It's humbling.

Team Building and Content Alternatives

Bartees Cox Jr.: I just feel sometimes [as a new artist] you're the only one that knows that you have something special, and you just gotta build around it. And then all of a sudden people just show up around you. You have a team and you have a plan. But you got to make the first step.

Anjimile: It definitely changed the scope and nature of the promotional cycle. When it became apparent that touring was not happening I was like, "OK, so I guess we'll have to get creative and do other things to generate and maintain interest in this record."

Christian Lee Hutson: I think everyone was just flying by the seat of their pants, like, "We'll do the best that we can do and we're just gonna do everything that we can as we think of it." Those were really the kind of conversations that were had. The funny thing about all of this is all you can do is throw your hands up and just do it, surrender yourself to it. And I feel like everyone has a label and Phoebe and me and my management, everyone has been pretty good at just being like, "Alright, we're just gonna roll with it."

Anjimile: I'm also working on building a team. I now have a booking agent. And I'm talking with managers for the first time and that's super exciting. I'm doing all these behind the scenes team building stuff.

Ian Devaney: We've actually, in the middle of the pandemic, gotten booking agents. And they were like, "This is weird, but we an tell people about the band for when things open back up. We can get your name into circulation of who's being considered for what." You can get the sense that they are ready to just throw us intensely on the road, and we are ready to do that as well.

Bartees Cox Jr.: Will Yip, who runs memory music, was just like, "This thing is super fresh. It's good no matter what. You got to just trust us." I was the most apprehensive because no one's ever cared about my music or anything I've ever done. So I was like, "Well, OK, if this is what you think, I trust you guys." And they were all just so passionate about it and they just worked so f**king hard. My publicist Jamie and manager Tim, they just really pushed the record really, really hard. Teams are so important. I didn't know how important they were until really this year, how much how much it helps to have a label and a manager and a publicist that love you and love your record, and are going to put in extra hours and go the extra mile. That was the difference-maker. I think that's why it didn't matter what was happening around us because yes, it's an election year, yes the world was literally ending, yeah there's a pandemic. But this record is f**king good. And it's not the first time a great record has come out when things are really bad.

Anjimile: I got hit up by a U.K. booking agency first, and they were like, "Hey, obviously, there's no touring happening right now, but we love your sound and we're looking into the future to see where you would fit in certain clubs, and we just want you on the team." The same thing happened with my new U.S. booking agent. She was like, "We've been following you for a couple years, seen your name everywhere. Booking doesn't really exists, but I want to work with you and get you on the team and we can talk about slowly building what a live Anjimile thing looks like."

Ian Devaney: I think part of it is letting fans know that we're not stopping. It often helps me emotionally invest in a band if I can believe that the band is really in it to keep moving. I don't know if that makes sense. People will email us or reach out through Bandcamp and things like that. And it's always just really nice to hear people's stories of how they've enjoyed the record.

Jordana Nye: My team taught me to just try to keep working and keep busy until we get a sense of what the hell is going to happen—and just release music because it's really all you can do. Anything you can do, you just have to do it.

Anjimile: I think the main idea for me is just galvanizing and continually engaging my social media presence. My social media numbers have climbed substantially as a result of this release, which is exciting. And not to sound like a f**king music industry business guy, but content is helpful, and so I'm just trying to create chill content without losing my mind. We're about to have a contest. We've got a video coming out. Hopefully people can sit at home and watch. I want to try and create content that folks can engage with at home. Part of our merch is boxers. We were like, "What about hats?" "Well, nobody's gonna see the hat." "What about fanny packs?" "Nobody's going anywhere." "OK. Boxers. People will be at home wearing them." We're just trying to be as creative as possible.

Jordana Nye: I've got some music video stuff in the works. There's a new one coming out that was filmed in my home of Wichita for "I Guess This is Life," and my best friend is in it with me. It's very, very sweet. And I can't wait for it to be out. But I'm also shooting a music video out here in L.A. for the track "Reason." It’s going to feature me walking an invisible dog on a leash. I'm f**king excited for that. I can't wait.

Ian Devaney: Our manager has been really kind of fantastic and diligent. In his mind there's still people who don't know the record. And so just because it came out in May, doesn't mean we're not going to keep working it as though everyone knows it, because they don't.

Mental Health Whiplash

Christian Lee Hutson: It's like, for debut artists, what do you have to compare it to?

Bartees Cox Jr.: I almost feel like more people are listening to music now than they were before, like really listening through albums, and really interacting with them.

Christian Lee Hutson: I think it would make me crazy to sit around and just be like, "Damn it, I spent all this time on this and of course when my record comes out, this is what happens." I mean, I'm actually kind of encouraged by the response to the album just in general, because I feel like it's such a weird time for music to come out and I'm happy that anyone has found it at all considering it's come out in the most turbulent year in recent memory. That aspect I feel positive about, like it was weirdly worth it, even though I'm not doing all of the things that I thought I would be doing a year ago.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I mean I've never had fans like I do now, and I'm doing all this during a pandemic.

Ian Devaney: In a strange way, I'm glad we're putting music out now. I feel like we are, as much as anyone can, engaging with the madness and sort of being defiant in the face of the madness and not giving up on trying to be creative and trying to dream big about what we can do in the future.

Anjimile: It feels surreal, but at the same time I've released music locally in Boston over the years. And nothing has ever come of that. And so releasing an album nationally with a label, I think my expectations were actually pretty low. Usually when I put out music nobody cares, you know? Why should they really care? And this time some people cared, and I was like, "Holy f**k." Even that that was beyond my expectations. And so I don't know, I'm just kind of trying to go with it. Because even though things feel weird, and at times, unfair and strange I don't know what is going to happen in the next three months, six months, nine months, right? I'm just cautiously cautiously optimistic about what will happen next. Because I do think that so far, things have actually happened right on time. Even though shit is really weird right now, and I don't know what's going to happen next, maybe something positive in my career will occur. Who knows?

Bartees Cox Jr.: I was talking to a friend about this. You look at these areas in music, or in America, like Vietnam War era music or these other big social phenomenon and the music that came from it, I think that one day people will look back on this quarantine pandemic era and think, "All these records came out during this weird ass time are interesting because of it."

What Comes Next

Bartees Cox Jr.: I was thinking that bigger artists that need bigger studios are gonna kind of be hamstrung by this where more D.I.Y. people can just be like, "Yeah, I'll write another record."

Jordana Nye: Going on tour, getting experienced would have helped my career a lot in way. But working on new music is also helping it.

Ian Devaney: For Nation of Language, we're planning on putting out a seven inch either like, December or January. So we've been working on two songs, as well as songs for the second record.

Anjimile: At this point, in the year, I have a lot of songs written, some which I think might be good. And so I'm just stacking up demos at the moment, trying to make sure I have like the juiciest tunes available.

Jordana Nye: I'm still just making music and content, and it kind of tells me that I can pretty much do anything that I set my mind to, which is comforting, especially in dire times when I feel like I'm not doing anything at all, and I feel like I'm a loser. People are digging the new stuff so I'm super excited for that, and makes me want to do more with different genres and just play around with them.

Bartees Cox Jr.: I'm gonna really take my time. I put out two records this year. I don't feel like I gotta like, hustle. I just gonna just keep working try to make some money and hold it down.

Christian Lee Hutson: I'm honestly just writing a lot and I am recording a lot of stuff at home. Early on in quarantine, I was just like, "Alright, in order to tell the days apart, I'm gonna record a different cover song for fun every day." So I did that for a while until I got bored of that. And now I'm just demoing and recording new stuff. It's the only thing I really know how to do. And I'm grateful that there's a lot of time to do it. Something I noticed observing other friends' album cycles in the pre-COVID world is the amount of time that they had to actually write and follow up their debuts is actually pretty slim, which I feel like I have a lot of time to accomplish that.

Capturing Los Angeles' COVID-Closed Venues

Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Photo: Eric Veras/Netflix

News

Beat By Beat: How "Song Exploder" Unlocks The Intimacy Of Music And Creativity

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Based on the popular podcast, the newly launched Netflix series dissects classics and current hits one layer at a time, while host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway finds the human connection behind it all
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Oct 20, 2020 - 4:54 pm

Most people know "Song Exploder" as the popular podcast giving die-hard music fans a deep, inside look into the sonic mechanics behind their favorite tracks. A whole new class of music-heads now knows "Song Exploder" as the new Netflix series bringing the creativity behind music to the digital screen.

Originally launched as a podcast in 2014, "Song Exploder" dissects classic and current fan-favorite songs, with guest artists breaking down each individual track and element in detail to paint an intimate audio portrait of their art. The podcast, which has accumulated more than 60 million streams and downloads over the years and has hosted guests like U2, Selena Gomez, Björk, Fleetwood Mac, Solange and many others, now breathes new life as a Netflix docuseries. 

Introduced on the streaming platform at the beginning of October, "Song Exploder" adds an even deeper layer of storytelling and personal insight to the songs being deconstructed beat by beat. The show's inaugural four-episode run features Alicia Keys ("3 Hour Drive"), Lin-Manuel Miranda ("Wait For It" from "Hamilton"), R.E.M. ("Losing My Religion") and Ty Dolla $ign ("LA"). (Last week [Oct. 15], Netflix unveiled its next slate of guests for the show's second season, set to debut Dec. 15: Dua Lipa, The Killers, Nine Inch Nails and Natalia Lafourcade.

Whether in visual or podcast format, the core of "Song Exploder" remains the same: "an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs," host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway tells GRAMMY.com.

GRAMMY.com chatted with Hrishikesh Hirway about the human connection behind his new "Song Exploder" Netflix series and how he hopes the show will inspire others to create their own art.

You have an endless supply of songs from which to choose for any given "Song Exploder" episode, podcast and show. What needs to stand out in a song in order for you to develop it for "Song Exploder"?

The first step in the process is really identifying the artists before even getting to the song, because, frankly, I don't know necessarily which songs might have the best stories. The most famous songs don't necessarily have the most interesting stories, and the people who know that better than anyone are the people who made the songs.

But what I can try and determine is which artists seem really interesting and thoughtful, good storytellers, and who are also beloved by a lot of people. That's kind of where I start. And once I can get an artist onboard to talk about a song in this way, then I start the process of trying to narrow down which song it's going to be with them.

I feel like I don't know what the story [of the song] is all the time. There are a lot of songs that haven't necessarily been delved into, and frankly, I'm always interested in something like that ... where the backstory [of a song] hasn't been canonized and "Song Exploder" can be a place to tell it for the first time. So I really am relying on input from the artists ... The question that I ask them, frankly, is: Which of your songs do you feel the most emotional attachment to?

Ultimately, the most interesting stories, I think, when it comes to making songs or really making any kind of art, are about people and their feelings and the things that inspire them to make something at all. Even though the show is about music, it's also a portrait of each of these artists. In order to tell you something insightful, especially for it to be something that could be interesting to people who aren't people who make music themselves and also aren't necessarily even familiar with the artist or the song, it has to be something that connects to something in the human experience that feels significant.

I always try to make "Song Exploder" a show that reflected a broad range of genres and artists and backgrounds. So there's kind of almost a guarantee that you couldn't just get people hooked on the show based on who the artists were and what the songs were; I want everybody to watch every episode and listen to every episode of the podcast because I think that it's a worthwhile conversation to have. I think the creative process is something that's really fascinating in and of itself. It's an example of how people react to their own experience, to actually decide to make something based on their ideas, what they lived through, what they love ... The thing that I'm actually most interested in is that kind of emotional experience: the emotional attachment to the act of creating a piece of music.

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder"

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

There's a moment in the R.E.M. episode where frontman Michael Stipe gets almost emotional listening to his own voice on the band's classic, "Losing My Religion," and hearing the song elements broken down and presented to him in such an intimate manner, even after so many years since the song's release. How do you go about getting artists to open up to you and dive into their art so deeply?

I think one thing that helps is that I'm not really approaching [the interview process] head-on, certainly not right away. The questions don't start off front and center in like an emotionally investigative way. I think I have to earn their trust first, and part of that is from talking about the mechanics of the process first. That's the entry point in all these conversations. One of the reasons why having the [song's] stems is important, not just in terms of letting the listeners know what's going on in the song, but in terms of being able to facilitate that conversation with the artist.

Of all of the questions, the hardest one to answer is probably, "Why?" "Why did you decide to make the song this way? Why did you write this lyric? Why did you choose this chord progression?" That's the hardest [question], but it's also the one that I'm most interested in. But it's a little easier to start off with, first of all, "What?" "What are we listening to?" And then to ask them, "OK, how did you make it? And when did you make it?" All those basic factual questions are a way to just let them and me submerge ourselves into the memories of making that song.

Once they're there and able to relive some of the experience of it by hearing the actual evidence of the stuff that they did on that day—hearing their voice, hearing the instrument, hearing the actual track that they recorded around that time—it's a lot easier to ask them to then dig a few layers deeper and ask what was going on in their lives and how that might've fed into some of those creative decisions.

Read: Rhyme & Punishment: How NPR's "Louder Than A Riot" Podcast Traces The Interconnected Rise Of Hip-Hop And Mass Incarceration

You're now juggling the show and the podcast. How do you decide what songs go on the podcast format and what goes in video format?

Well, the podcast is a lot of work for a podcast, but that means that I'm still able to turn around an episode in a few weeks, whereas the TV show takes a much longer time to put together. There are just so many more components to it, and it's so much more work.

Part of the pitch for doing the television show is that I was trying to ask these artists to take a leap of faith, [like,] "This is something that's going to take a while to make, so you can't tie it to your promotional calendar, necessarily. I can't guarantee that it'll come out on such and such date to coincide with your single release or something like that." It was really more like, "Would you like to participate in this thing where there'll be this really meticulously crafted mini-documentary about this work that you did, and it's sort of evergreen."

That's a different pitch than with the podcast. Although with the podcast, I say all those things, too. I say it's evergreen and it's always better when it's not necessarily tied to your release schedule and more like when people have had a chance to live with the song a little bit. But one of the advantages of the podcast is it can be a little more nimble because it's a little easier to put together.

So this is a long way of saying that a lot of times that question is answered by the artists themselves or their publicists or managers, who are looking for a very specific outcome or timing, or they have something in mind, and that could be a matter of scale. It really depends on the circumstances of the artist and what works for them.

Fans who've been following the podcast for a while will find a totally different experience when they come to the show. There are two types of storytelling when I hear "Song Exploder," the podcast, and when I watch "Song Exploder," the docuseries. The podcast is very audio-heavy: You get to really hear all of the isolated bits and pieces of the song. The show has a lot more historical and cultural context, sort of like a mini-documentary for a song, and you also hear from a lot more voices beyond just the recording artist. Beyond the visual element, what do you gain in terms of storytelling through the show?

I think one of the things that you mentioned is absolutely key to the TV show, which is that often on the podcast, it's just a single voice or maybe two voices together … But with the TV show, because the timeline was so different, there was a chance to stop and say, "OK, who do we really want? Who are all the voices that are involved in the creation of the song?" Maybe not just the artist, but also the collaborators that were essential to making the song. 

Having that kind of breadth and depth, it isn't always afforded to the shorter turnaround time and the scale of the podcast. But here, to really immerse the audience and give a really full picture of what the song was, having those other voices in there was really important. For [the] Alicia Keys episode [about the song "3 Hour Drive,"] we traveled to London to film with [the song's guest vocalist and co-writer/co-producer] Sampha and the [song's] co-writer/co-producer Jimmy Napes because we knew that they were going to only expand and flesh out the story.

I think a part of it is also a matter of craft, too. When you're working in audio, you're kind of only working in one dimension, which is time. You're just relying on one sense, hearing, and you're just basing everything on how long things take; the rhythm comes from just that one sense. But with TV, you have to also give a rhythm and complexity visually, too. You can't just transliterate the podcast into a TV format, where it's just one person talking, mixed with the isolated stems, because it wouldn't work; it would get very boring very quickly. So in order to have that kind of texture and nuance, we wanted to involve all those different people and try and give a little bit bigger of a picture than maybe what comes out in the podcast.

Do you see the podcast and the show as separate entities or related in the same family? Do you need to engage with both formats to fully appreciate or understand what "Song Exploder" is trying to do?

Oh, I don't think you have to engage with both. Of course, I would love it if people did, just because they're both things that I've put a lot of work into, and you want people to enjoy the stuff that you've worked on. This is not a great analogy, but I think it's sort of like reading a book or watching a movie that's been adapted of that book. I don't think you need to read the book to enjoy the movie, and vice versa, you don't need to have seen the movie to have full enjoyment of the book. But maybe you'll get something out of the experience of taking both in. Maybe it changes the way you feel about both.

This is, of course, a little bit different, because it's not even the same story that's being told. It's really just taking the core concept, which is an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs, and taking that concept and expressing it in these two different media. So it's much looser even than something like an adaptation of a book to a movie.

What artist or what song is your holy grail for the podcast or the show or both?

I don't have one holy grail—I think I probably have about a thousand. Anytime I start listening to music, I start wondering about it. That's not new since I started "Song Exploder"; it's the other way around. That's always been the way I listen to music. When I fall in love with a song, I want to hear it from the inside out. I want to hear what the individual tracks, what the individual stems sound like. I want to know what the ideas were that inspired all of these things that I'm falling in love with. "Song Exploder" was just a way of me being able to actually make that happen for myself. So anytime I'm listening to music and I hear something great, you could put it on the list.

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder"

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

What is your ultimate goal with "Song Exploder"?

I wish people would either watch the show or listen to the podcast and come away with a feeling that they want to make something themselves. Part of my aim with the show is to democratize the act of creation a little bit. I think it's easy to look at very successful artists or very successful songs or any kind of art in any format, where it has reached a certain level of success, and think that there's some uncrossable boundary for everyday people that keeps them from making something as great as those songs …

I think the best feeling that I always get from finishing working on an episode is something akin to that. That like, I just want to go make something, and it doesn't just have to be music. I think that anybody who is interested in making anything at all, to get something from the show, just the idea of going from nothing but an idea and following that all the way through to a finished piece of art, I hope that might be inspiring to everyone.

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