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The Twilite Tone

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The Twilite Tone Finds New Dimensions Of Sound On Debut Solo Album

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GRAMMY.com talks to the decorated producer about 'The Clearing,' science fiction, his studio setup and the spread of hip-hop in Chicago
Jack Riedy
GRAMMYs
Oct 12, 2020 - 10:31 am

The Twilite Tone is a dimension of sound and mind. The producer and songwriter also known as Anthony Khan has been making music for over three decades. He produced nearly every track on Common’s debut 1992 album Can I Borrow A Dollar?, helping to bring Chicago hip-hop to national prominence. After DJing for years, he returned to producing in the '10s, bringing the iconic Super Beagle sample to Kanye West’s GOOD Music posse cut "Mercy" and co-producing an entire Gorillaz album, Humanz, with Damon Albarn.

On Khan's debut solo album, The Clearing, he blends funk, disco, house, hip-hop, boogie and pop across 14 instrumental tracks. It’s an audio odyssey rooted in rhythm, with thumping grooves perfectly stitched together like a dancefloor DJ set that's still subtle enough for repeated listens on headphones. The album, out now via famed hip-hop label Stones Throw, is a fitting companion to the label’s roster of instrumental hip-hop by producers like Knxwledge and J Dilla.

Khan is in an enviable position after decades of making music: promoting his solo debut while visiting Atlanta to work on Kanye West’s next album, and still making time to read a bedtime story to his 6-year-old daughter every night. GRAMMY.com spoke to The Twilite Tone over video chat from Atlanta in early September about science fiction, his studio setup and the spread of hip-hop in Chicago.

What inspired you to release your first album?

About three years ago, I started composing this album and I realized that people knew about all my accomplishments, my affiliations and my reputation, but I didn't feel like they knew my sound. Producing on a song like "Mercy," you kind of get overshadowed if they don't outright put "Produced by the Twilite Tone." And I said, you know, forget always celebrating the things I've done and who I'm affiliated with. I want people to respect me now. Let me make an instrumental album where I don't have to depend on anyone and nothing is on top of it to deter you, or distract you, or deflect you, of who and what this is. So when I say instrumental album, I mean that, these aren't beats, these are instrumentals.

It sounds like you weren't ever interested in collaborating with anyone externally. Did you ever think about adding vocals yourself or writing vocal melodies to go on top? Or did you focus on making an instrumental project from the get-go?

The latter. Some of these songs did have top lines before, whether it was by me or it was other people, but I just felt like these songs, for some reason, they were speaking to me. I felt like it would be more impactful as instrumentals. And I felt like it wasn't time for people to hear my voice in that way, yet. Let me establish myself this way, sonically first, and I'll grow to that.

You've been around for a long time, and for a good chunk of that time, you were a background figure. Was there a turning point for you where you said, "Okay, I really want to put myself out there as me and establish myself as an individual"?

The turning point for me was DJing for Common the last four to eight years, where he would call me to do gigs with him when his regular DJ wouldn't be able to show up. He's only going based on his memory of me being a great DJ, I have far evolved from that, I wasn't even listening to rap music like that, let alone his music. And he would call me to do these intricate shows. I'd literally get the music and the show'd be tomorrow, and no rehearsal. I learned a lot from looking at how people galvanized around Common, and other artists that I work with. It was motivating and inspiring me to want to do it myself.

I selfishly started working on me and my project. I tried to work with other people [at the start], but it's like gathering up a crew and not having a ship. "'Okay, we got the crew together.' Well, I'm waiting on the guys to build the ship. ‘Well, call us when you got the ship.'" I guess what I'm saying is, I navigated on other people's ships. And I just was like, man, I think I want to go out on my own and do my own exploration, I think there's things that I could discover. And I appreciate being on these ships and learning what I've learned, no knock to all the different people I've worked with, but I'm ready to row row row my boat. [Laughs.]

What was the setup when you were actually working on these songs?

The whole album is composed on an MPC2000XL, a Triton Renaissance and a machine that is so near and dear to my heart that I have refused to divulge what that Moog-like machine is. Then it goes through a Fostex VF16 hard disk recording. I don't really EQ on the Fostex. I do all my sequencing and balancing on my MPC, but I'll add certain effects via the MPC or the Fostex recorder or my Triton or my "Moog." I use a compression on the overall mix. That's it.

It's funny to hear you say that at the time, you weren't even really listening to rap that much. Because in my mind, I think of you as the guy who brought hip-hop to Chicago clubs and Chicago parties. Can you tell me about how you came and went with hip-hop, versus house versus disco and all those genres that you're familiar with?

When I was a kid, I was inundated with all kinds of music. I was an MTV kid. And my family is very musically immersed and inclined, my uncle being a bassist and him being married to Chaka Khan, and then my mother and my father met dancing. Coming back to Chicago for grammar school, there was a stank brewing, it didn't have a name, but it was uptempo, and it was later to be defined as house. And I was into it, even though at the same time, I was listening to [University of Chicago radio station] WHPK, [hip-hop DJs] JP Chill and Chilly Q. I was going to parties, I was going to [legendary all-ages club] Medusa’s, and all these things, right? Then I got started working on music with my friends. I was making dance music while simultaneously making rap music. Only from the outside was there separation! From the so-called dance music scene, oh, I was ghetto, and on the other side, the people that was in hip-hop or rap was calling me gay or whatever.

So in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, there was a shift in the culture of Chicago. That shift was people wanted more than what was being played at the clubs. There was a group of us that just wanted to hear Soul II Soul, De La, Tribe, Jungle Brothers, we wanted to hear a quality rap song. We were met with a not great response. If I'm not invited to the party, I'll throw my own, and that's what we [hip-hop crew Dem Dare] did. That's not to say there weren't other DJs doing it. But the way that we presented it by having attractive young ladies there, from all of these magnet schools from Chicago, and having people from all sides of town, that was unprecedented.

I was embarking on a journey of being an artist, but it didn't work out because of the miscommunication, or lack thereof, with my colleagues who I was creating music with. So it caused me to fall into the role of being DJ guy. And so I rode that through the evolution, if not devolution, of rap music. When I got to the late ‘90s, I realized like, Yo, man, I felt like a drug dealer, and I'm not a drug dealer, and I don't want to play drug dealer music. That's how I got to not listen to rap music. I was more into, let me find what is me as opposed to what is not.

I did want to ask about the sci-fi motif that's running through the album. There's the HAL 9000 voice, and other samples and voice-overs that you included. What's the sci-fi theme mean to you?

The sci-fi is just in my genetic makeup. "The Twilight Zone" was my favorite show. Thus The Twilite Tone. The sound bytes are actually speaking to the bottom line of what I wanted to communicate. The sci-fi thing, I thought, would be a creative way to say what I want to say without being so direct and literal. And it sounded cool. And it's funny, you know, I use a lot of [Canadian synthesizer pioneer] Bruce Haack. And I found myself being a conduit for Bruce Haack. I felt like, damn, me and Bruce Haack are saying the same things. It just serendipitously came together.

Is there any advice that you can give to a musician or other creative person?

Be yourself. I just gave some advice to my god-nephew, because he wants to get into music, and he lives in Atlanta. He's like, "Man, but my stuff doesn't sound like this." I said, "Good. And it's not supposed to." And another thing I was saying is, would you do music for free? Then you're on the right path. You're doing this to hustle, and because you think it's easy to make money by making the hi-hat sound like semi-automatic weapons? I say stay out of it. We got enough of that.

Was there anything that you were listening to for inspiration while working on this album?

I don't listen to producers for inspiration. I daresay this may sound arrogant: a lot of people that people worship and look up to, they're my peers, or I've come before. That was another reason why I did this, so that I could start showing like, this is really me, I'm not trying to be somebody else or be the next up, none of that.

This is just the beginning. I'm actually a new artist, it's funny to say that. But I'm like [professional baseball player] Satchel Paige. Or Thelonious Monk: I lost my cabaret license, I couldn't play publicly, but that didn't mean I stopped playing at all. I really relate to Thelonious. A lot of people going crazy over John Coltrane and this guy and that guy, and Thelonious is not getting recognized because he can't [legally] play. He's not performing, he's doing other things. But when he finally steps out, it's like, oh my god, who is this guy, right?

Sun Ra Arkestra's Knoel Scott On New Album 'Swirling,' Sun Ra's Legacy & Music As A Healing Force

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Common

Photo credit: JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images

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Q&A: Common Tells The Stories Behind 'Like Water For Chocolate' For Its 20th Anniversary

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20 years after its release, Common acknowledges his fourth studio album as a major career high, and he spoke to the Recording Academy on the phone about why
Dan Weiss
GRAMMYs
Mar 31, 2020 - 11:43 am

Lonnie "Common" Lynn has been putting out rap records for almost 30 years, but he spent almost all of the 1990s looking for his audience after an initial taste of fame with 1994's metaphorical "I Used to Love H.E.R." garnering buzz among backpackers. Immediately after, he found it: His fourth album Like Water For Chocolate, which just turned 20, boasted an incredible roster of producers (J Dilla, DJ Premier, Questlove), rappers (Mos Def, MC Lyte), and non-rap musicians (D'Angelo, Jill Scott, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, Fela Kuti’s bandleader son Femi). The star support cast, in turn, brought out the best in the headliner, giving him his first hit ("The Light") and his most memorable turns yet on the mic, like when he bucks his woman-friendly reputation to play a villainous pimp opposite MC Lyte, who makes a fool of his character.

Most of these names were joining forces as the Soulquarians, and releasing an unprecedented number of great hip-hop and neo-soul albums between 1999 and 2000; Like Water For Chocolate not only shares company with D'Angelo’s classic Voodoo and Erykah Badu's equally amazing Mama's Gun, but tracks from one could’ve ended up on another. Being around greatness made Common greater, and soon he was gracing Neptunes (Electric Circus, Universal Mind Control) and Kanye West productions (Be, Finding Forever). He found his audience. But 20 years later, Common acknowledges Like Water For Chocolate as a major career high, and he spoke to the Recording Academy on the phone about why.

What do you think when you look back on Like Water For Chocolate two decades later?

I feel very happy and grateful for the artists I was around. That was such a joyful, creative experience, moments like Jay Dee creating "Nag Champa (Afrodisiac for the World)" or me hearing "Heat" on a beat CD or just him playing "The Light" for me. Flying back and forth to Detroit, getting to spend that time with Dilla, then going to Philly to work on stuff and having Ahmir ["Questlove" Thompson] oversee the whole thing, being around Tariq ["Black Thought" Trotter], going to Electric Lady and being able to walk into a D'Angelo session, and Erykah! Man, this was one of the greatest times in my life.

It’s astounding how many great albums came from the Soulquarians collective during this period: Like Water For Chocolate, Mama's Gun, Black On Both Sides, Things Fall Apart, Voodoo…

It was inspiration, it was competition, it was support. Black Thought was the person that was playing me Fela Kuti, who was a real influence. That was my first time working with DJ Premier, so that was a blessing; I was like "Whoaaaa, I have Premo beats!" And I met Jay Dee with Q-Tip at his place back in '95-'96, but I reconnected with him and The Roots while they were working on Things Fall Apart. Mos [Def] came in and did "The Questions" with me. Hearing what Erykah [Badu] was doing was inspiring. We were really iron sharpening the iron when I say we were competition. I obviously wanted Dills to create what he was feeling, but wanted it to be different from everything else he was giving to other artists. But he did that naturally anyway. "The Light" might have been the second song I wrote for that album.

Did you have any idea "The Light" was going to be a hit when you wrote it?

Nah, I’ma be real clear. I never could say I know what a hit is. I write from my heart, and my spirit, and my imagination, and what I think is fresh. I want to touch people’s experience and their hearts and to translate to a feeling for them. And that's why i even called it Like Water For Chocolate, because the concept for that movie was people cooking food and showing their love and how they felt for each other through food. And I was like, "man, I’m showing it through the music and I want people to feel that love and energy to create something within them to find their own inner passion and light." So when we did "The Light" I was really just writing a love song and being really optimistic and candid. I knew it sounded great but I never knew what it would get to be. That was the first song that I had on the radio, on mainstream radio. I was performing at Summer Jam and that was the first time I remember seeing young black girls singing my song. Teenagers to adult women. I was like, wow, this is amazing. Most of the songs I created prior to that were so hip-hop-oriented and weren’t as catchy.

The album has this lush, dense soundscape of live instruments, and a dream team of guests. What was the most difficult thing to pull off?

I really wanted Femi Kuti on it and at the time I knew he really didn’t know who I was too much but somebody on our label—he was on MCA too—hit him up and i guess they played him some of the music and gave him a briefing of who I was. To get him on it was incredible. It also wasn't easy to get D'Angelo because he was working on his own projects, and D is one of the greatest ever, he was a master. But it worked out, I got him on "Geto Heaven." and that was a beautiful thing. What initially happened was the song on D'Angelo’s Voodoo, "Chicken Grease," was for me, and "Geto Heaven" was actually created for D'Angelo. But D'Angelo really loved “Chicken Grease,” so he was like, "Can I get 'Chicken Grease' and I'll give you something."

Have you ever regretted letting D'Angelo have "Chicken Grease"?

"Chicken Grease" would have been for me in the same lane as "Cold Blooded" to a certain degree even though it’s not the same vibe or whatever, but "Geto Heaven" added another color to the album and "Chicken Grease" added another color to his album. But it all connected and part of that connection is in the expertise or skill of Ahmir and people who really know how to put together albums. Ahmir is a visionary, D'Angelo too, so "Geto Heaven" fit where it should. Ahmir did the sequencing for Like Water For Chocolate, he truly executive-produced that album.

One of the best things you've ever done is the back and forth with MC Lyte on "A Film Called (Pimp)," truly playing characters. Did anyone give you pause for portraying a pimp?

Yeah. [Laughs.] At the time I was watching a lot of a documentary called Pimps Up, Ho’' Down and it was interesting to see the characters of people that were living that life. They had a pimp that was named Mr. Whitefolks, he sound just as black as anyone else, and they had a female pimp. I thought, let me write my own film and also be able to make fun of myself. The truth of the matter is somebody who’s "conscious" is not always serious. Women would approach me, they thought the conversation was going to be based in what books I've read or astrology, but I still like basketball and hanging out with my friends talking sh*t.

That song "Payback Is A Grandmother" added a cinematic quality—you can hear the influence on something like Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.a.a.d city years later. Did this album have anything to do with you wanting to delve into acting later?

Yeah, this album helped lead me into acting. I took the music somewhere I had never been and I didn’t know where to go musically anymore.  I was really thinking about another creative outlet and i was literally taking piano lessons from Robert Glasper for a second, not long, he came by and taught me for a couple of times but I wasn’t that good. And I was like working on vocal lessons to try to be able to sing, and I was not good at any of these things. But I went to acting class and something about it resonated with me. My A&R Wendy Goldstein actually introduced me to my acting coach when we were in the last leg of promoting Like Water For Chocolate.

Have any surprising people told you they were a fan?

So many different musicians come up to me like, "Man, I listen to Like Water For Chocolate” and I'm like, yo, these are musicians who play something: saxophone, guitar, bass, drums, flute, piano, they listen to it and that’s the honor right there. 18-year-old kids come up to me like, "That’s one of my favorite albums ever." Chris Rock just in the last year, told me "I was just riding and listening to it, that was an incredible album." And I’m like, what? Chris Rock? He's one of the greats.

On 'Things Fall Apart,' The Roots Deepened Hip-Hop

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Bartees Strange

 
 

Photo by Julia Leiby

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

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Speaking to GRAMMY.com, the D.C. songwriter and producer discusses his musical upbringing, his journey towards making 'Live Forever' and what he says to anyone who asks about his "genre-defying rock music"
Hannah Jocelyn
GRAMMYs
Sep 26, 2020 - 7:40 am

Bartees Strange is clearly a student of all things indie rock, and that was clear as soon as his introductory EP, the National covers project Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy. Inspired by a concert where he was one of the only Black audience members, he wanted to re-interpret their catalog and connect it to his own experience. While working on the project, he would slip in references to Bryce Dessner’s project Clogs or even other National songs he didn’t cover. A close listen to "Mr. November" reveals the chord progression of Sleep Well Beast highlight "I’ll Still Destroy You."

You just need to hear "Mustang" to understand how versatile Bartees Strange is, but also where his primary loves lie. "Mustang" started as a country song but evolved into something that takes inspiration from 2000s rock like the Walkmen’s "The Rat," while introducing unexpected time signature changes and glimmering synths. Then an unexpected hardcore breakdown at the end of the track hints at the chaos to come over the next half hour. Live Forever, his debut album releasing via Memory Music on Oct. 2, pulls together elements of country, rap, IDM and rock into something unlike any record out this year. Despite comparisons to TV on the Radio, his eccentric approach puts him just as much in line with iconoclasts like St. Lenox and Young Fathers.

The references to indie rock continue: "Mustang" quotes the Antlers' "Epilogue" ("you’re screaming and cursing")—but it’s more an album about Bartees’ personal journey. Growing up in Oklahoma, Bartees worked for non-profit organizations while moonlighting as a drummer in various bands. Second single "Boomer" documents the moment when he finally felt at home in Brooklyn, the title not referring to the oft-mocked generational term but a period of time Bartees felt like he was "booming." Other songs like "Mossblerd" directly address his status as a Black man operating in a space dominated by white men—that title is a combination of "Mossberg" and  "blerd," itself a portmanteau of "black" and "nerd," over a heavily compressed noise collage. It’s fitting, because Live Forever is essentially a series of musical portmanteaus.

Speaking to GRAMMY.com over the phone, Bartees discusses his musical upbringing, his journey towards making Live Forever and his suspicion of labels.

How are you holding up? You just got a new job at a studio? And I remember hearing that you were working on a new record with Will Yip producing?

Will and I are talking about doing our next record together, and I'm going to pre-produce it in October and just see what I pull out. But I finished a bunch of it already, I’m just trying to see what the next one will be like. I'm excited about it. I just moved out of my old spot, which was my apartment. It’s been really cool to have bands reach out and want to work with me. I’ll be producing a bunch of bands and artists through the year while keeping up with my stuff. I always wanted to do this so I think it will be fun.

How did you discover music was a passion of yours?

I found music through my parents. My mom's a singer and my dad is a really avid music collector and like speakers and record players and he really liked that kind of stuff, even though he wasn’t a musical person. I got to hear a lot of interesting things that way, but my personal journey with music and being able to really seek it out and buy the things I want probably started when I was in middle school. I was one of the only Black people in my school where I was going. There were a bunch of people that were into heavier music, they were into Glassjaw and a bunch of Christian hardcore bands, all the Tooth & Nail bands and As Cities Burn. They also looked different, they were like a little bit more diverse [of a] crowd. And then all the white people looked really f**king weird and I felt like I could kind of slide into that crew and kinda be a little more anonymous. I was just kind of sick of sticking out all the time. But it was through that, that I found At The Drive In and a ton of other bands that really changed my life.

Read More: Philly Producer/Engineer Will Yip Works Harder Than You

I read that your mother was a Jubilee singer. If at all, how does what your parents grew up listening to (and performing) inform the music you’re making now?

Legacy is something that weighs heavy on me. Like, I always grew up hearing about my mom singing when she was younger and all over North Carolina. Everyone knew my mother, and I would remember being a kid and every time we go home in North Carolina, I was listening to her sing in all these huge churches. As I got older, I learned more about my mom's side of the family, and all of these people who were tremendous singers and vocalists and guitar players and bass players, and all the way back as far as like anyone can think. And this is like Chitlin' Circuit, era, Black music in the South.

My first solo project I ever put out was a six-song folk album that was all about just connecting country music and blues and all of these like super Black sounds together. It's definitely in the backdrop of the music I make.

Before we get to the full-length, I want to ask about the National EP for a second, Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy. On "Lemonworld," you changed the line from "I was a comfortable kid" to "I'm an uncomfortable kid, but I don't think about it much anymore." Can you talk about that change and those kinds of easter eggs?

The EP is called Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy and in my theme of the record is like, I felt like I had always been precious in my previous life. Like before I really started taking music seriously, I was very precious. And I felt like I was trying to be this person that I really didn't like. And a lot of the record was about saying goodbye to that. It's like me sneaking in saying that I'm growing, I'm moving on, and I'm feeling better about who I am and I'm more comfortable now.

It's just fun songwriting to put your own kind of feel into it and to reference things. I always kind of think of it as like sending smoke signals up to people that I want to work with one day, like there's shit that I did in the National record purely because I wanted Aaron Dessner to hear it. I was like, “Yo Graham, we should do this, it's a Clogs reference." It's just nerdy shit that I enjoy. I guess subconsciously, I want people to catch t, but I don't plan for that, you know?

Have you thought about making a record with Aaron?

Oh, I'd love to. I mean, I just don't think Aaron has ever considered doing that with me. She probably would imagine he's pretty busy, but I would love to work with him.

Tell me about the timeline of recording and releasing Live Forever.

In December, 2018, I hit up [No Earbuds founder and indie publicist] Jamie Coletta and I was like, "Hey, I have this song, but I also am about to go and record an album. Would you be down to work with me? Like at all?" She was like, "I don't want to commit to the album, Let's just see how this single goes." And so we released that single ["In A Cab"] and then I went and recorded the album. I went for like almost two weeks in February and recorded 17 songs. And then me and Brian DiMeglio started mixing it right after that. And he and I shot a bunch of versions back and forth, like over the next month, probably a month and a half. And then we got it mastered by Jesse Cannon, who's in New York and he's a great engineer. It's a cool studio up there.

And then, I circled back up with Jamie and we were like, cool, we've got a record. Let's see if we can build a team around it and see if we can find the label. We shopped it for a long time and no one really was that into it, to be honest. Like, I think people thought it was cool, but maybe it just wasn't the right time or something. And then we just kept on going and we got some booking help and eventually like we got it to Will and then he was really, really into it, like super pumped. And that was honestly like right before we put out Pretty Boy. So we were shopping the album around for almost a year.

It must have been frustrating to have this whole album ready to go without actually releasing it!

I really felt like I wanted to take the time, I know I've seen a lot of bands release music and I've been in a lot of bands that released music and we always did it way too fast. And Jamie gave me great advice. She was like, "We should take our time. Like if it takes a year, like it takes a year. They're like, we're gonna just get it to as many people as we possibly can." And it worked. Eventually, we found somebody, but I think in that year I also locked down the Pretty Boy project and recorded it. So, we had a label to do one release and I think that was like a really great thing to happen. I think it was like a good way to introduce my music. So it all worked out somehow.

There are several left-field experiments like "Flagey God" and "Mossblerd." Can you talk about that song in particular?

I really wanted the album to be like an exploration of sounds. And I feel like I naturally am writing a lot of different things all the time. Like it's always been hard for me to just be write hardcore songs or just punk songs or whatever. I felt like with songs like "Kelly Rowland" and "Mossblerd" and some of the more beat-driven ones, it's hard for me to say that there's like a through line between those and like the rock songs. But I remember looking back at the projects and saying, "I don't have to be afraid that all these songs sound different" because the through line I think is just me, just that I made them. And that it's my story and my voice and my experiences. I think beyond that, there's no sonic element that makes everything similar. I'm just kinda pulling it together. 

One of the differences I noticed between you and a comparison point like TV on the Radio is that their lyrics are less directly about Tunde Adebimpe’s life and more conceptual. Meanwhile, on Live Forever, there’s an in-joke about your PR work ("I lie for a living now that’s why I can’t tell you stuff"), there’s an Antlers reference, there’s even a reference to the Hershey Relays. That kind of storytelling about your own life is very rooted in rap. Was that contrast deliberate?

Yes. I think that was very deliberate. One thing that I love about hip-hop for me is, I know what's going on. Like, shit is very clear. All of the messages are sharp and succinct and clear and if you're not familiar with the lexicon, I guess that's a barrier, but if you are familiar, you can know what's happening. And I feel like in rock music, you could be talking about anything in a rock song, but if it's arranged right, it can just be great.

And I wanted to bring that type of approach that's normally used in hip-hop with writing lyrics and making things super clear and concise. "Boomer" starts like a DaBaby song, like right on beat one. Like there's no intros, it's just like, boom, like we're in the song [and] I'm rapping, you know? That was something I wanted to do a lot. I did it on "Mossblerd" too. Cause I thought that shit was genius. Like those DaBaby songs are so simple and they start so fast and so quickly, it's like a freight train. And I was like, "How can we do that in a pop punk format?” Which in my mind is like a freight train, but just in a different way. Those were some ways that I was like, "Maybe I can smash these two ideas together." And I liked how it sounded.

When you're writing, are you thinking in terms of "this is my National song, this is my weird trap song?" Or is it just like, "I'm going to make a loop or a piano part and just see what happens?"

So I normally start with a loop or a piano part. Once I work that section, I just start collecting sections, like, so like literally in project files. Then, once I like have as many sections and ideas collected, I just start arranging them and when I can hear it and I can look at it and say like, "Oh, it would be sick if I was rapping. Or if there was a drum and bass beat here." I go through incrementally like that. But I definitely don't think like, "Oh, let me make [this kind of] song." I'll just think like, "I love when DaBaby does this, I want to try and find a way to do that on a song."

You’ve spoken extensively about how your race informs your songwriting; what does it mean to you for someone to "sound Black"?

It’s hard not to say that most Western music doesn’t sound Black. Many of our most popular forms, pop-rock-dance-soul-funk-gospel-country-folk-blues, hip-hop, all seem to be rooted in Black people. Or at least shaped by formative Black artists.

I think that it's kind of strange and impossible to be expected to stay within a genre. And I feel like genres, and how they've played out, just in the categorization for Black artists, it's all just kind of set up so we'll lose. When Tyler, the Creator put out Flower Boy and Igor, I remember listening to them and being like, Whoa, these are pop records. Like, these are huge, super future-facing pop records, you know? I don't see how naming them all Urban [helps]. I think that Black people that are just, you know, the shit and it shouldn't be weird to see Black rock bands. Like, there should be tons of them. It shouldn't be weird for them to also have hip-hop influences.

That sounds like it ties into "Mossblerd."

And also just like how genres grow to impact your life and how you see yourself and the contributions that your community makes. I ended the song talking about my nephew who is a pretty outstanding rapper. But I remember being 16 and Black, and I know a lot of young Black guys that all thought they were going to be rappers and we were just going to sell drugs and just be rappers you get that from the shit you see on TV. And it's all tied back to genres and what we're telling people that they can accomplish. So it can be kind of dangerous.

That's why when people ask me, Oh, what's it like making "genre-defying rock music." I'm like “All that is just Black music and I'm Black," and that's it, that’s the whole thing.

So someone wants to get into playing music—maybe they’re also into the National and those kinds of bands but don’t see themselves in it. Do you have a message for them, the kind of thing you wish you heard when you were 16 and thinking you were going to be a rapper?

I didn't know what I could do or become until I saw it.

And I remember seeing Bloc Party and TV on the Radio and bands that had people that looked like me and how much it meant to me. And I think that was really important and something I've just learned in making music is that sometimes you just have to be your own biggest fan, and you have to build the thing that no one else knows is real yet. You might be the only one for a while that knows that you have something special to offer. And that doesn't mean that you're wrong. I spent a lot of time, in my teens and 20s, playing in all sorts of bands, trying to fulfill myself because I didn't trust myself.

And I didn't believe that my music was worth making because I didn't look like other people. And my voice was so resonant. And I just sounded like a church kid in a hardcore band, which is weird to hear my Black voice over these riffs. You just feel like you can't do it cause no one has seen it, but you might just be on some shit that other people can't do. And you have to learn to trust yourself and really learn to go with your gut early. And then people will just form around you because you'll be doing something that is genuine and from the heart. And that's the hardest thing, to create things that actually connect with people.

Is there anyone you want to shout out?

Melanie Charles. I think she's the best vocalist and hip-hop producer... ever in New York. I would want to shout her out. Taja Cheek and her band, L’Rain. I really loved their music. Felicia Douglas. Felicia is in Dirty Projectors, but she's got two side projects that are amazing. I look up to those people quite a bit and their music is always super tasteful and excellent. I’m loving everything Dancer is putting out, I’m loving everything Pinkshift from Maryland is putting out. I'm not sure if there are [more Black bands] now or if people are just elevating those people more. But I do know that there have always been people of color and Black people in rock bands and they just didn't always get the same opportunities. So, maybe it's like a little bit of everything.

Matt Berninger's Optimistic Malaise

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 Ariel Rechtshaid

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More Than A Decade In, Songwriter & Producer Ariel Rechtshaid Stays Winning

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With another HAIM album under his belt and a Hot 100 hit from a member of his Heavy Duty Music roster, the Los Angeles-based hitmaker is having yet another banner year in a string of banner years
Brennan Carley
GRAMMYs
Sep 18, 2020 - 8:38 am

In late June, Ariel Rechtshaid scored a Hot 100 Number One in the unlikeliest of ways, he says. "It was another random phenomenon in a series of random phenomena that I've witnessed in my life—and another thing you couldn't possibly control or cook up."

The 41-year-old songwriter and producer is talking about "Trollz," a splashy chart-topping collaboration by New York meme-turned-rapper 6ix9ine and actual New York legend Nicki Minaj, which was co-written and produced by Jeremiah Raisen, who’s signed to Rechtshaid’s Heavy Duty Music. While it’s not a direct Hot 100 credit to Rechtshaid himself, it’s one in a string of massive successes the company has racked up this year. In 2020 alone, acts like HAIM, Charli XCX, Bon Iver, Yves Tumor, and Francis & the Lights have enlisted Heavy Duty Music’s stacked roster to assist on their recent projects. "When you're able to take a step back and forget about all the bullshit, when you see the impact that you've made on people's lives, that's really the thing you're most proud of," he says.

And that’s not even taking into account Rechtshaid’s own massive accomplishments over the last decade. Long considered one of the most thoughtful voices in pop music, he’s likely contributed to at least one of your favorite artist’s projects, helming hits for Madonna, Sky Ferreira, Carly Rae Jepsen, Blood Orange, U2, Vampire Weekend, The Chicks, HAIM, Adele, Beyoncé and more (many, many more).

Rechtshaid, a GRAMMY winner (for Usher's "Climax" and Vampire Weekend’s Father Of The Bride), carved an hour of his afternoon in early August to walk GRAMMY.com through his massive 2020, his equally staggering career and the ways in which he’s been able to get business back to usual after the pandemic hit Los Angeles earlier this year.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You're someone who likes to get in the studio with artists for full projects. So how has this pandemic changed the way that you work?

It made me feel like I'm between jobs. I haven't had that in a long time. Everything's been one thing after another. I've taken breaks, but I've never been at home in my studio during that break.

My version of working in this world is not [stacking up sessions with] loads of different people every day. It's just not the groove I landed in. So once we were able to have access to testing, which we're fortunate to have in L.A.—and if it's somebody you know well enough that you feel like you can trust them, and there's transparency—then I was able to start getting back in the studio and do things the same way I'd ever done it. There’s fewer people hanging around, though, and it’s a little bit more focused.

At least a couple of the pandemic months have been occupied by surprise live recordings for artists that I have been working with. I did some work with The Killers on their new album. I did obviously a lot of work with HAIM on their last record. That's been the version of touring or promoting.

Why do you prefer working with fewer artists on longer projects?

I came into it from more of a conceptual, full album state of mind. At first, there wasn't even really an option beyond that.  Nobody I knew was even thinking about the idea of working with multiple producers or multiple co-writers. I don't think anyone would be able to afford that. It wasn't an option.

On top of that, the most influential music on me was always made that way too, whether it was hip-hop and a producer like J-Swift doing the whole Pharcyde record, or Dr. Dre doing full records too. Of course there's room for external people coming in to collaborate, but there's an overarching concept you're trying to achieve. It doesn't work by randomly working with different people and making a compilation album. That works for certain records, but it wasn't the kind of records that I think I’m at my peak working on.

For a full album, it's very easy to lose perspective and not really achieve what you necessarily wanted to or could have with a little bit more time and space, but there is control because it's lots of trial and error. So many songs change several times over the course of making an album. Sometimes the concept is found on the journey to making that album.

How do you choose how to divide your time in terms of who gets your attention in any given year?

A lot of it has to do with timing. If I commit to something, I'm in it. Unfortunately, [that means] I'm not available for other things and that's been weird and heartbreaking for me. At the same time, I've never really felt like I needed to work on everything that I like, or that I needed to work on everything, period. I'm so happy to be a fan of music and just listen to an album and not have gone through the hard work, and sometimes traumatizing work, of making that album. It's not a sport for me.

I want to work on things that I understand and I feel passionate about. Sometimes that's just not what people are looking for. When you talk about records where I've done a song or two, it's usually because they were just already making an album that way. Then they came to me and I felt either adventurous that day or I had an idea and there was some sort of reason or chemistry for doing it. Sometimes you want to try something you’ve never tried before. [That’s true of] Usher. I was a big fan, but I never really saw myself making that kind of music in the room with him, but I got asked. I was like, "I’ve got to give it a shot." I was really happy with it. "Climax" is a song that I'm very proud of being a big part of.

I mean, of all the songs to have taken a swing on, you walked away with a GRAMMY-winning cultural reset of a track.

Having been there, I attribute it to nothing less than just chemistry and luck and timing and the mood of everything, because it just happened. We didn't go in there with preconceived ideas. In fact, if I had any, they were incorrect. They were false. They [were just me being like], "Okay, I know what Usher sounds like," to hype myself up.

He really was instrumental in shutting the door on anything you could have expected from him. He was all about functioning on pure intuition, like, "Let's just roll, no ideas." He knew certain things [about what he wanted]: "I don't want it to be a four-on-the-floor track. I want to do something unexpected with you. That's why you're here." I was like, "Okay, oh shit."

It was a very different kind of experience than producing the Vampire Weekend album or the HAIM record. It's almost a completely different job. It's funny that you could be called a producer in both instances; it's such a vague term, in a way.

And yet you do take those single-song swings every now and then, and they seem to pay off. You just did it with The Chicks, who spoke so highly to me of you recently, on Gaslighter.

I had huge respect for the Chicks. Timing-wise, I was available, they were local, it was easy to accommodate the session. We just showed up and we talked. They probably told me a lot of what they told you. It's funny because the demo [of "For Her"] is very banging. Every reference they had was hard-hitting. We started to freestyle around the room and then me and Natalie [Maines] stayed there until midnight, putting together the framework of the song—a little bit of banjo and a little bit of fiddle, just to give it their identity. Then I handed over the stems to them and it was a year later and suddenly, I got asked for approval and I heard a very different version, which is interesting.

On the record, it was a very mellow, long, epic version. Ours was this three-minute, hard-hitting little gospel jam; it reminded me of Tom Petty, hip-hop, and gospel mashed up together. It goes to show how different each process can be.

Do you ever feel weird about leaving your work in someone else’s hands, not knowing what it’ll end up sounding like, if it ever even comes out?

It's so fun for me, really, because it's so interesting and so opposite of what I'm doing 364 days a year. By all means, I do love that. I don't feel like I'm a control freak. I feel like I have a point of view and I feel responsible when I'm hired to do something that that's what they're asking for. I'm here to give it. I'm also very interested in what the people I'm working with have to say and have to offer.

I feel like that's been really instrumental with HAIM and Vampire Weekend, where I give something, they give me something back, and we just keep going tit for tat. The result is far more elevated than either one of us could do on our own. We're pulling each other in different directions and it's fun. It's like a great game of basketball.

Where in the end, both teams win.

That's the idea—or both teams are at least better.

Let’s talk more about that HAIM record. What keeps you coming back to that creative well, three albums in?

They originally reached out to me because they saw my name on the credits of some of their favorite Cass McCombs songs. They also loved "Climax." They were like, "What?" Even though when I first heard them, I was like, "Woah, why me?" I think it was about exploration. They assumed that I was down for all of it and they were right. They were right that my influences and my interest is vast.

What people expected of them, at least for their first record, was based on their live shows—very straightforward rock. They just didn't have the means to expand on that yet when I met them. When I got to know them, they told me their influences ranged anywhere from the Eagles to Pharrell to Chaka Khan. They had a deep, deep, deep musical knowledge, and years and years of playing and studying and rhythmic abilities. It was this huge open canvas.

What's been really gratifying about working with them over the course of three albums is that things were moving so fast for them from the moment I met them. They were already touring and it just kept growing and growing; there was always a finite amount of time for work. That's okay. There wasn't not enough time, but you just hope that the next time, you can expand and go in a different direction and keep evolving. I had seen a glimpse of everything that everyone else has seen now, from "Forever" to "Summer Girl." I'd seen a snapshot of all of that on day one. The fact that we're talking about less than 40 songs or whatever it is? That's nothing. I feel like we could easily get to another three albums and still be exploring new territories.

You worked with Vampire Weekend on Modern Vampires Of The City, and you returned on Father Of The Bride. Is that another instance of you feeling like that’s a band with more to show the world with each album?

Why it worked out with us on Modern Vampires is because, without even having to think about it, I would never have any interest in trying to copy what they’d already done. I'm like, "Okay, let's explore," and that's exactly what they wanted too. They felt like they had already closed the chapter with the first record and Contra, and they wanted to break out of it.

We didn't make a conscious decision to go in and start working on the third record. They were fooling around. I think the process between production and writing is blurred when it's done in house. They’d started a lot of things, but had hit some sort of a wall. I had started to work on Rostam [Batmanglij]’s solo album after Contra came out. Then, at some point, just out of the blue, he was in town with Ezra. He called and asked if my studio was available, and would I be interested in coming and helping a little bit?

Without really knowing it, by the end of that first week, they had knocked down some barriers that they had felt. Then, we just kept going. Father of the Bride was very premeditated and also an experiment. I don't know that it was 100% clear that there would be a fourth album. People talk about how long that album took. It didn't really take that long. There was just a lot of time in between.

Without saying too much, again, it feels like the beginning of a new era. They had albums one, two and three, and then… I don't know. Now I feel like the process continues with potentially four, five, and six.

Am I to understand you’ve also been working with Sky Ferreira again?

Oh yeah.

This should come as no surprise to you, but fans are beyond eager for new Sky Ferreira music. We've been wondering where it is.

On some level, we never stopped. There was so much that was birthed out of that era of us working together. I can't exactly tell you what's going on internally over there, but I've wondered the same thing. I was always just on the tip of, "When you're ready, hit me up." When I met her, she was very young and she'd had a couple not great experiences trying to make music, trying to get what was inside of her out. I don't know that she had even fully formed a clear picture of what it was she was trying to get out of her.

The chemistry between us was good and we went on an exploration period. Out of that came, "Everything Is Embarrassing" and a couple early singles which clarified the direction of the album. We made that album, [Night Time, My Time], pretty quickly. Honestly, they were demos. After she had some time to sit with it, she realized that these "demos" were what she wanted, so it just came out like that.

I'm honored to be asked to be part of the next chapter. When Sky put out "Downhill Lullaby," I was super happy for her because I know what a struggle it was on the first record, and those previous singles, to find that sound. I know how much she had to fight against. There was an energy behind her but she just was never happy with the music. She was fighting the machine, in terms of like, "Oh, just sing this song this pop writer has written," you know what I mean?

Someone wanted her to be one type of artist, which isn't what she wanted for herself.

From my perspective, it's not such an evil idea. It's just...they believe in her as a personality, and they want to help her put music out. They can't make the music for her, so they can only help her by suggesting this or that. What she and I did together is not something that you can really plan… it was a bit abnormal. We just played around and found something that I thought was very unique and represented her, and she felt the same way.

It was honestly another chance meeting, but for her to feel empowered enough to go do something else and figure it out is really exciting. I also felt that way with Solange. We had done a lot of work together early on. We stayed close and she played me A Seat At The Table, and I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm so happy for you," because I could sense that that was something that she was trying to make early on. She played me songs that she'd done all by herself. She took her time and she found it. It's nothing that I could have done with her. That was her. I was excited for Sky on that level as well. I'm also happy to be called back in for this next chapter, and we have some stuff cooking. It's cool. It's exciting.

The work you did with Sky, and then later with Carly Rae Jepsen, really changed the ways people thought about quote-unquote "pop" music in the 2010s. Suddenly, the most uncool genre was cool again.

I've felt that, but you really only realize it in retrospect. When artists call you to work on their project, you start to wonder, "What are you looking for that we're doing over here in our other world?" Because when I was working with Dev Hynes on Blood Orange, and Sky on Night Time, My Time, and even HAIM on Days Are Gone, it really felt like the periphery of the mainstream. With HAIM, we felt high praise by artists like Taylor Swift. A lot of artists were really inspired by that first HAIM album, and Sky’s too, but you're just doing your thing. The fact that it made a little dent in pop music? It's crazy.

It just kept me honest, really. I worked very hard for those successes, but I feel fortunate to have the encouragement to just do my thing, to not be competing with other trends or producers, to not do something that is not authentically me. In those earlier days, everything felt like little stepping stones of encouragement and confidence, and achieving a slightly higher plane with every artist and every project.

With Carly, it wasn't like any of those songs were as big as "Call Me Maybe," but it seemed like her goal was to make something that felt more authentic to her—or at least authentic to her then-self. It achieved what it was trying to achieve, and introduced her to a new audience. All those things feel good. A lot of times, people just run through a Rolodex of producers who are just getting it done in this era, and that could be me. Really, what they're hoping for is more of the same, and for me to have success with doing this thing that we cooked up in the comfort of our own anonymous little home was a really fortunate thing for me because it encouraged me to just continue to explore and do my thing and be me.    

We’ve talked about building up newer artists. But how do you go into a room with someone like Madonna and not lose yourself in those sessions?

I'm fairly sure I lost myself that time.

Are you?

I mean, not in a bad way. I came into that session with Diplo, who I had a longstanding creative relationship with, which I'm also extremely fortunate for. When we first started working together, it could not be more bizarre [of a pairing]. That first Major Lazer record and some of the stuff we were doing early on was so left field, and the fact that he became such a go-to pop producer was so wild to me. That got us in the room with people like Madonna, but nobody was steering that ship other than Madonna.

I was just flipping through pages of her Sex book and reliving my youth and inspiration from her, with her. She's such a gracious, awesome person in real life. That was just a fantastic opportunity in this weird exercise of fantasy. It's so hard to have a clear perspective on her because she's just omnipresent. Her peers coming up were Michael Jackson and Prince, you know what I mean? It's totally insane. If you've seen her live, that's another experience altogether. Getting to know her, she's like a true eccentric, very smart and very knowledgeable. There's depth and real roots in stuff.

She's also just done it all. You get to a point where you don't know what to expect and it doesn't even matter. She's just continuing to create and add to her catalogue. Who's going to tell her no? I had ideas, but she's a strong personality. And you have to respect the legacy. I wasn't going to be the one to control what direction she went with it. She wasn't even asking me for that, to be honest. I was there to be part of a team of just helping her create and find a vision that she was comfortable with. My respect for her is more than enough to allow me to do just that.

Haim Open Up About 'Women In Music Pt. III,' Protesting In L.A. & Music Industry Sexism: "Not A Lot Has Changed"

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Tame Impala

Photo by Matt Sav

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Tame Impala Checks In From Hibernation

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Kevin Parker talks to GRAMMY.com about how he’s surviving without touring and finding comfort in disappointing those looking for "Psychedelic Jesus"
Laura Studarus
GRAMMYs
Sep 2, 2020 - 8:46 am

Kevin Parker is calling from under the covers. Given 2020's stay-home ethos, bed seem like a logical place to conduct business, even though the Tame Impala frontman swears it's only because it’s morning in his time zone, and he hasn’t quite summoned up the energy to start his day. 

His comfort with isolation makes sense—he is, after all the guy who named his sophomore album Lonerism. As the uncertain year stretches on, Parker says he’s enjoyed the extra time at home and in the studio, where he writes and records each part of a song from the ground up, a talent he recently demonstrated on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." And while Tame Impala’s back catalogue is laced with arena-worthy rock, it’s not a stretch to call this year’s The Slow Rush a more introspective release. Fitting, given that after his tour was cut short in early March, fans were relegated to dancing along in quarantine. ("People have been telling me that's weird how the lyrics of this album ended up being kind of relevant to now," says Parker. "Which obviously, I didn't anticipate.")

Calling from his home in Perth, Australia, Parker spoke to GRAMMY.com about how he’s surviving without touring, finding comfort in disappointing those looking for Psychedelic Jesus and the unsinkable Kanye West.

What's been your favorite souvenir during all your travels?

Sukajan Man in Harajuku, in Tokyo. I've been in that place a couple of times. And each time we've been back they've recognized us and we just kind of had a chat. I think I bought a jacket off him 10 years ago. Sometimes fans give us presents, just stuff they've made. I've got a box of stuff from over the years. It's full of weird bracelets and letters. Other than that, I try to pack light, so I'm not much of a collector.

I love that you save the greatest hits of fan gifts.

That's what it really is!  Everything ends up in my suitcase, that's not drugs. Sometimes it's like a little gift box and then on the way to the airport you lift the lid and there's like 50 bags of weed. It’s like, oh, shit!

How did you make peace with not touring behind what's obviously a very summery album?

I haven't yet! I believe we'll be able to at some point. If it was just me, missing out on touring and I knew the rest of the world was doing it, and going to festivals and stuff, then I think it would be more difficult to deal with. But the fact that everyone's in the same boat, it kind of just makes me think we'll get that chance. I was touring Currents for five years. The fans are obviously waiting for new music, but it just makes me think if we get out in a year or two, then it's like it'll still be fresh, and it'll still be good. People have been telling me that's weird how the lyrics of this album ended up being kind of relevant to now, which obviously I didn't anticipate. Obviously, I can't see the future. So, it's kind of it's a wild coincidence.

Did you have sort of any indications going into that last show that things were going to be shut down?

Yeah, it was kind of building up in intensity. The day after the second L.A. show was when it really became obvious that we shouldn't play another show. The last one was like, in hindsight, oh, maybe we shouldn't. But everyone was so naive then. I like to believe that no one that was there was spreading it at that point it.

You hit upon a really great point that none of us are dealing with FOMO right now. But on a personal level, have you felt pressure to make this year meaningful or productive when you know you can't do a large portion of your job?

There's always things to do. In fact, I've been kind of the busiest that I have been in a long time. In the last few months, doing non-music stuff. The internet exists, and I've got a studio. I'm shooting videos and doing live streams, like what I did for "Stephen Colbert." And you know, and people still listen to music. So, for that reason I'm extremely blessed I'm extremely privileged that my craft. While touring is a big part of it it's not the only part of it.

It also seems like your process is so insular compared to a lot of other artists that it's not a logical leap for you.

And for that reason, I kind of lucked out there. I kind of feel like my process was built for this time. It almost feels like I've spent the last 10 years doing something that was made for global pandemics.

How does the guy that makes escapist music find his own form of escapism?

By making it. That's kind of always what I've loved so much about making music since I was really young. As soon as I was making music, nothing else mattered. It was a weird kind of combination of escaping it and facing it at the same time. You know, like singing about something that was negative was simultaneously a way of escaping it and dealing with it.

Are you able to step back and distance yourself when you hear your music in the wild?

I'm getting better at that. I think in the last few years I've just been able to shake that kind of cringe that I feel when I hear my song in public. I'll be at a bar or something with friends, or like going to a restaurant, and I'm with people and a Tame Impala song comes on, a few years ago, I would have huddled into a ball and laid under the table. While everyone's looking at me laughing. Now I'm kind of more in the opposite. I'll try and alert everyone.

Any particularly memorable moments?

I was at a wedding many years ago, and someone put Tame Impala on just kind of as a prank. And I cleaned the floor out, which was pretty funny.

When you aren't clearing out dancefloors with your music, what kind of dancer are you?

Well I need to be drunk for starters. I'm not busting moves; I'm definitely just grooving. The only way I can actually dance is if I'm one hundred percent feeling the music and not actually thinking about what I'm doing. Again, I'm getting better at not being cringy on all fronts.

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Tame Impala performing at Flow Festival 2019 in Helsinki
Photo credit: Laura Studarus

You're currently working a lot on your own, but it seems like there was a period of time there when you were the featured artist. And after so many collaborations, do you still have the ability to get professionally star struck when someone reaches out to you?

I'm a sucker for getting star struck, I don't know what it is. It takes a lot of mental coaching to remember be myself, which I'm eventually able to do. But whenever I met anyone I like, I just forget. I forget the golden rule that no one's larger than life, everyone is just human, which is something that I am instantly reminded of every time I meet someone famous, like two minutes into meeting them. I'm resigned to the fact that they'll be disappointed that I'm not Psychedelic Jesus.

Who would you love to meet and/or collaborate with?

If I answer that, I might jinx it. If anyone ever saw that I'd completely geeked out, then they might be hesitant to actually ask because they'll just think I'm gonna be a fanboy. We'll put it this way—a lot of those names have started to get crossed off. Kanye West was top of my list, easily. I mean, we didn't fully get to do something properly. But I'd love to do something to Daft Punk, that'd be really cool. They're one of those ones where it's like, I don't want to mention it too much.

So, what's your stance on blowing out birthday candles? Do you keep your wishes a secret as well?

Yeah, no way, that makes it not come true. That's if you believe in wishes.

Do you?

I don't know, what's the deal with wishes? Is there a wish God that's receiving all these, then sort of administers them? Who are you talking to when you're wishing?

I feel like a wish is more something you tell yourself and then [get] yourself in the headspace to take care of whatever it is. Where a prayer is something you're addressing to a higher power.

Well in that case, tell everyone, because then it puts the most pressure on you actually do it.

I was gonna follow it up and ask you how you felt about fate, but I'm worried we might be getting into Psychedelic Jesus territory.

I don't believe in fate as much as I realize that we are all atoms bumping into each other. We're all just lots of little balls, floating around in space, bumping into each other. And so, in a way, we have no control over what we do because our actions are just defined by chemicals.

How do you feel about Kanye West's supposed to run for president?

There might be some mental health issues. And then with that in mind, like, you can't really make assumptions on anything. Kanye, he's built his life, and career on being extremely ambitious. He's ambitious to a fault, probably, but that's always been the power of Kanye West—he's not been afraid to fail. I think like he has less fear of failure than most people. Which is one of the secrets to his success. When he tries to be president, and fails, he'll start a shoe company and make a zillion dollars. It's like you win some, you lose some. And I think on Kanye it's just a brand, it's on the grand scale. And same with being a being a legendary hip-hop artist.

I love the way you frame that because finding our way out of fear of failure is something a lot of us have to do.

I think everyone can take a slice of that. Because yes, I'm afraid of it. The fear of failure, probably like everyone else, is the thing that's held me back the most. Basically, my New Year's resolution every year is to not be afraid of failure. Being fearless with following my passion—music—got me where I am today. Every time I've thrown caution to the wind and done something [that] feels [good], it's paid off... and where I haven't done something because I've been afraid of failing, I've regretted it.

What's making you the happiest right now? 

Maybe that I don't hate that the whole album cycle has ground to a halt, because I don't want this album [The Slow Rush] to be the album that reminds everyone of this time. I'm kind of happy for the album to be in hibernation. If we start touring again after coronavirus, whenever that is, we'll play shows around then. For the rest of people's lives. It's the music that reminds them of the time when coronavirus ended, then that's all I can hope for. That's all I want. And so for that reason I'm kind of okay for it to be in hibernation. [Laughs.] My record label would be screaming if they heard me saying that right now.

Capturing Los Angeles' COVID-Closed Venues

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