TN:182 Bleachers (Jack Antonoff)

Introducing Jack Antonoff

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1:00Hello, I'm John Kennedy and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes is Jack Antonoff, producer extraordinaire to talk about how he wrote, recorded and produced the album, everyone for 10 minutes by his own band, Bleachers. Throughout the conversation, Jack demos a huge amount live in the studio, constantly soloing tracks, adding effects in real time, reshaping sounds on the fly and experimenting and demoing as he talks through the sessions. It was a really fascinating look into the way he plays around with ideas and captures energy in the moment.

1:33There is a lot of music in this one. So if you'd like to watch the interview and see into his Pro Tools sessions, then head over to patreon.com forward slash tape notes. As well as full video episodes, membership also gives you behind the scenes content, entry into our monthly gear giveaways and the chance to ask our guests questions. Thank you as well to our partners at Tape It. The team at Tape It have just released their new Denoiser plugin, which does an incredible job of removing any unwanted background noise from recordings while keeping any source sounding completely natural.

2:03We think it's great and it's currently half price. So head over to tape.it forward slash Denoiser to check it out. But now, without further ado, let's get started.

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Background and career path

3:21Jack Antonoff is an American producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Having performed, produced and written music throughout his teenage years, Jack first came to mainstream attention in the 2010s as part of the band Fun with their global hit We Are Young. He has since become one of the industry's most in-demand producers, often credited with shaping the sound of contemporary pop through work with artists including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, Lana Del Rey and the 1975. He has won 13 Grammy Awards, including three for Producer of the Year.

3:55With Bleachers, the band Jack founded in 2013, he has released five studio albums and toured globally with their latest record, Everyone for 10 Minutes, released in May 2026. Today, I'm at Platoon Studios and I'm joined by Jack. And what better way to start than by hearing something from Everyone for 10 Minutes. This is Sideways.

4:44It is Sideways by Bleachers from Everyone for 10 Minutes, the new album.

Making Everyone for 10 Minutes

5:12And I'm very pleased to say that I am in the company of Jack Antonoff once more. Hello, Jack. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. How are you doing? Good. It's about two years since we last spoke about the last Bleachers album. Everyone for 10 Minutes has just arrived. What happened? What were you trying to do with this record? I was trying to bring people together. With particular people in mind or the world? Particular people in mind. Right. And that's a very specific criteria for who those people are, which is people who are tired of running on the fumes of cynicism.

5:50Feel me? Yeah, I do, definitely. Are there individuals involved as well? Because in some ways, listening to the album, listening to the songs, they do seem to be appeals to different people in your life. Yeah, but they, the people in my life, I don't, you know, if I write a song about someone, they're always, they're always like a placeholder for a bigger concept. You know, I never, I very rarely write a very, very specific song. The other night in the hotel room, I wrote a song just on my guitar about like my aunt and uncle who, oh, such a beautiful story.

6:23They, they, my aunt, they're both dead, but they're great. My aunt Elaine was in a horrible accident and she lost the use of one hand. And then she met this guy, Herbie, who was also in a, had physical issues and he only had the use of one hand. And the way they fell in love is, you know, the buses, those horrible windows on the bus, the school bus, you have that in the UK that you have to like push both sides. You guys know what I'm talking about? No, in America, the school buses, you have to like push two things. You need two hands to open and close the window.

6:53And so they fell in love because, well, they fell in love because they fell in love. But when they met, they were both on the school bus and, and she used her working hand and he used his working hand and they could have opened and closed the window together. It's a beautiful metaphor. So I was writing about that last night and I was thinking to myself, this is so specific, but it's really not about them. It's about the concept of completion, you know, complete, completing someone else in a very literal way in that metaphor.

7:23Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Yeah. It's going to be. They're both sad and sad. They were great. Sometimes I find like the people who have the hardest time in life have the best perspective and are often like the most positive. I try to think about that a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

Dissecting I'm Not Joking

7:37Excellent.

Dissecting I'm Not Joking

7:38Well, we're going to dig into three songs. Too much too soon? No, no, no. That's, that's fascinating. We're going to dig into three songs from everyone for 10 minutes. And the first one we're going to look at is I'm Not Joking. This song is, I really wanted to show you this song and it might be, it might be very different than other sessions because there's nothing in it. Yeah. Which is why I wanted to show it. Yeah. Well, let's have a blast with the master and, and then we can see the nothing that you're talking about. Yeah.

8:11I'm not the type to ask you about last night. I'm not the type to ask you about the ones who came before me, baby.

8:43I'm just glad your mind adored me, baby. And I'll hold every door for your love like, ooh, I'm not joking. Just a little taste of I'm Not Joking by Bleachers.

9:18And I can see the door, Jack. You say that there's nothing in it. It looks quite simple. Yeah. But what are the ingredients and who is playing on the track? The reason why I wanted to look at the session of the song is because it's so often about manipulation. And I think last time I was on the podcast, I was showing you writing echoes on the master and things like that. And this is an example of, um, of the opposite. So you're looking at a mix session and, you know, you're, you're looking at what happens if you record a song in a room with a band and then do a few, you know, takes on top of it with some interesting things.

10:01So, so, so we're in a studio, we're in a studio and outside of Rome. And a lot of times my favorite recordings happen when I'm not trying to do anything. You know, if I'm listening to like a Sly record and hearing how the band sounds and I get all these ideas in my head of, oh, it's dirty and heavy compressed and blah, blah, blah, or whatever. And then you go in with that influence, you get shit, you know, or if I hear street hassle and those strings sound so cool. And then I go and I want to express that garbage, right?

10:33But if you're just with yourself or with the band or the musicians and you just do things, you find your own versions of those things. So we're in this studio in Rome. I was there because my wife was working in Italy. So I thought, oh, how fun, let's get the band to come out and we'll, you know, drink Amaro during the day and record. And it was like a really cool thing to do. I mean, no one's ever upset about being in Italy, right? Yeah, totally. Right? Yeah.

11:03Well, no, I'm a fan. Right? I'm a fan.

11:07So we get there and it's like, I'm so out of my element, you know, I usually record at Electric Lady or at Tamarin, you know, my studios are, I'm so locked in. So it's not, I'm not being obsessive. I'm not like, this is what I want. These are the mics I want. Yeah, mic the drums. I don't care. So what you get when you have that, my goal was to make some demos with the band in the room. So the drums have four microphones, right? I was taking one kick.

11:37One top snare.

11:40One bottom snare. One overhead.

11:46Nothing really, you know, going on plug-in-wise. That's what was coming in, right? So we got that. And then say, okay, Zam, you play the bass.

12:03Sounds like someone getting ready to play the bass, right? It's not a bass tone to write home about. It's just, cool, cool, cool. Let's keep moving. Get the piano up, get the piano up, right?

12:16Stereo pair. You know, once again, a little EQ. If I turn it off, you don't even hear a difference. You know, so I could turn off every plug-in in the session. It would sound no different. The plug-ins going on are essentially just carving here and there for a little bit of energy. Mikey's on the B3, right? We have three mics on the B3, which were the ones set up.

12:45Sounds like a B3. What I love about this song and where I'm at in a lot of recording is I'm not, in certain songs I am, but in this song, I'm not trying to show you, oh, you're never going to guess what I did with this B3. You know, we put it through, like, a lossy and then we reamped it through a copycat and then we spun it around and played it backwards on the Pioneer, you know, and it's just, I'm free of that. I'm just in the room with someone playing a B3. And it's an interesting thing I'm going through, and maybe some people are too, where I feel the most shocked by the least pretense.

13:19But that might just be a reaction to the world in general. So, the horn players, which were overdubbed, I have them room mics and close mics.

13:35But once again, you know, my instinct with horns, like, let me take, for example, like this Evan horn, right, which has nothing on it, has little EQ taking out some mud, but essentially nothing, right? And let's actually make it nothing. There's now nothing on this horn, just how it was recorded.

13:52So, that's Evan playing, obviously, some Bleed, so he's live with them. Normally, I'd take that horn, right? I always like, you know, like Young Americans, and I'd take it, I'd double the track. You know, maybe if I was in a nice studio, I'd do this with tape, offset it, and just automatically kind of bowie it.

14:10Right? And then I'd probably go even further. You know, now we're starting to get, I mean, look, your face, like, now it's exciting, right? This is an exciting horn sound, I'll go even further, I'll offset it with some even harder panning.

14:28And I'd go even crazier, probably, right? Like, I'd put, like, a chorus on one of them, really go to town, you know, I'm really in my Young American zone now. Now I'm having fun, right? Now I might, like, put it in a bus, you know, and get even more interesting. Once again, if I'm in a studio, I'm probably doing these type of things more with tape. Start writing, and let me see, mix, you know, really start to make a sound that is fucking thrilling me in my headphones with this horn.

15:06And by the way, I'm obviously doing all this to show you what not to do on this song. But, you know.

15:24Hold on, so now I've got this automation, I'd probably put, like, a doubler on it, and even mess with some trim. Point is, I'm not going to delete all that. That's, like, cool, like, what a cool horn sound, I'm feeling all of it.

15:55So the opposite of what I was looking for in this song. And there was some accidental nature to it, in the sense that I was just recording the band and thinking I was making demos. But often you arrive somewhere, and you later realize why things are cool. And in the case of this song, it's, like, hearing everyone just completely as they are is so cool. So just an example, you know, but that took me so far away from this. Which, now that we hear the two back, you know, and forth of me, you know, doing some interesting production versus just hearing the player, that's more interesting to me right now.

16:35It wasn't two years ago, but now I just hear, I hear Evan, I hear Zem in the distance. And maybe all this is just a fucking reaction to culture and the concept of interesting sounds being more duplicatable than they ever were, that I just want to hear the band. So, back to where we were. I got my horn section, this was overdubbed. So, the basic live tracks, which we'll start with, was piano, bass, drums, B3.

17:10And I'm kind of writing the song in real time, so this is what we start with. So, did you, when you were in Rome, in that studio, did you have this song? Was there any idea of this song? I had ideas, but I kind of wanted to work it out with the band. Yeah. Have them make chord changes too. Yeah.

17:39But often, you know, like, some songs you want everyone just firing. Like, you feel everyone figuring this out. This song is about figuring something out. I often do get literal. So, it's like, you know, when you want what you get, when you get what you want, it's the heaviest to know that it's really on. You know, that's the time to hold on. That's the time to hold tight. This idea about, you know, I write a lot on the album about falling in love. What about this idea about falling in love? Like, it's this, like, massive test, right?

18:09Like, okay, now it's really happening, and now everything you do matters. I feel that way, you know, when you're single and you're out there looking, it's like, you're messy, you're doing this, it's kind of all LOL. You meet your person, it's like, well, then it really matters. It's like when you get on the stage, or when you get behind the mic, now what you do and say matters because there's something at stake. Like, the huge point of how I see the world these days is what's at stake? You know, most things I read, there's no stakes. You know, so I really am passionate about things where the stakes are high.

18:41So, I wanted the band to be serious in that way, but not so serious that you lose all the edges. The song is about drifting on the edge and staying in the line. So, we practiced it a couple times, and then we did this take. Like, and like I said, the bass being the best example of, I would never pull this bass tone up and be like, whew, that's the tone, right? But you put it all in context, and all those transients and that, you know, kind of like Ernie Ballness in the bass is just singing so nicely with the flatness of the drums.

19:21So, I have this, right? And the first thing I do is just get on the mic, and at this point, I was really into just singing on 58. You know, you get in zones, and you're just like, I don't want to be in no booth of the 47 right now. I want to be on a 58. I want it to feel like it is live. I want the transients of when my lips hit the mic. You know, you lose that with this, right? Like, I'm not going to eat this shit, you know? Like, it'd be weird. It'd be like pornographic if I put my face in this mic. If I had a 58, I could have the thing practically down my throat, you know? Yeah. So, once again, I'm going to turn off every plug-in just to show you that there's really nothing happening.

19:55I'm just glad you're lying on the door, baby. And I'll hold every door for your love life. You really hear the 58ness on, like, lines like door. And I'll hold every door for your love life. Once again, all I'm doing on, you know, a bunch of plug-ins going on, but they're just kind of making it louder. And I'll hold every door for your love life.

20:27Ooh, I'm not choking. So, this is what I have, right? This is what I'm sitting there with in Rome. And I'll hold every door for your love life. Ooh, I'm not choking. It was nothing for a sight. The first thing I do is just, I'm like, all right, this is giving me some kind of sonic happiness as a worm gun feelings. So, I just start to layer some backups. And I start to think, you know, I think about happiness as a worm gun a lot, really hard

21:06panned. You've got to hold on. Ooh.

21:13Draw the line.

21:16Don't run away.

21:19Don't lose your ground. Just starting to build, like, a little choir of a man talking to himself in the mirror.

21:36So, is that all you? Yeah. Yeah. And was that done in Rome? Yeah. So, that was done the same day? Right away, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you want what you get. When you get what you want. And sometimes I love, like, there's such a great, like, 60s energy of, like, singing at yourself in different voices. Like, you know, I'm here and I'm singing this important song, but then my backups are me, like, yelping. Don't run away. Up there. Don't lose your ground. Oh.

22:08When you want what you get. Voices. When you get what you want. Different characters. And so, that's the record I have that I leave Rome with. And the only thing we tracked afterwards in Rome, we put the horns in. Yeah. Which do are really important.

22:33You know, big horn lines at the end. Shut it up, shut it up. Shut it up, shut it up. So, that's what I leave with, right? It's just a wonderful recording of a band in a room and a guy reckoning with having something to lose, right? That's the song. Take it home. There's just something missing. I don't know what it is, right? The song started like this at the time. I thought it was unspecial.

23:01It didn't put me somewhere special. You know, I knew we were in Rome and I knew that drum sound is only four mics and it's so fucking cool, but it just didn't put me there. When the song gets to the end. Shut it up. I was so locked in. I was like, how do I foreshadow how important this song is that it's not just a band in a room. There's something bigger happening. So then cut to a separate thing, which is, I always think about instruments that aren't being used enough, you know, and then they get used and then you forget about them, right? So like on this record, I thought a lot about the harpsichord, the harmonica and the clavichord

23:34because it's like, I don't hear these things anymore and I love them. I bought a harpsichord and a weird little clavichord and I just started messing around and they came to my house and, you know, it probably took about an hour, but I pulled them up and recorded a few different takes. You know, some takes, stereo room mic, nothing on this, some extra takes doing like some flourishy things. I'm just kind of playing around the notes and then this clavichord thing, it's like,

24:12it bends, you know, the harder you hit the notes, they bend. It's kind of wild. So I started doing this stuff, which is really pitchy out of context.

24:26It's these borderline, you know, sort of Eastern. You put them together and I was like, oh, this is cool. Like, this is a world. And that's when I decided, okay, let me, let me start the song. Let me write a line. And so I wrote this part.

24:57Which I'd also just watched Amadeus. You know that movie? Yeah. And so I was kind of imagining myself in that situation too. Yeah. And then I put it at the beginning and then I heard that thing, which is the importance of what the song was right from the top.

25:14And then the drum entrance.

25:17Oh.

25:21And then the band is sort of its own thing. So there's this, and then the harpsichord and the clavichord, this whole world are just gone. And I'm left with my Rome recording.

25:34And it was so simple. It took one second to do a few tracks on the harpsichord and clavichord, but Jesus Christ.

25:40That's like, that's like whatever. And this is like, my mind like opens into like a whole world. And then they don't play much of a role, the harpsichord and the clavichord throughout the song, but they really take flight in the end. Can we hear those in context then?

26:18Yeah. So at the end, they kind of pop back out.

26:25And then I bookend the song with them.

26:34It's almost like in the harpsichord and clavichord, I don't hear a person. I hear like a little chorus of like angels being like, this is important. Give me your attention. Yeah. Whereas the song, I hear the people so clearly.

26:54And so, you know, it's so basic when you look at the session and it took no time at all, but it was just about the playing and the choices of essentially how to take a song that's just, you know, most important is the song. And it's one of my favorite songs, but a band in the room presenting something and then one or two other elements that just make it more than the sum of its parts. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And those words, you made them up on the spot. Yeah. Because it's quite a deep song. I had them like, I had little ideas in my head. You know, sometimes you get like, like I had the idea like explaining like, I don't really

27:28care what happened before. I don't know. Why would I? You know, so that's one thing where I feel out of step with other people. You know, and I just had that idea like I'm not the type to care what happened before. I'm just happier here now. And then the chorus just kind of came out in real time. Ooh, it was love at first sight. Good Lord, I found you. You know, I'm not joking. You know, I like this idea that like there's no wink. Like, you know, if I wrote a lyric, it was love at first sight. It seems like there's like a wink in that.

28:00So I liked just being very direct with my sincerity. And then the whole end, that just kind of came out of nowhere. I just started, you know, shout it out, shout it out, shout it out, shout it out. When you want, when you get, when you get what you want. And I kind of said that because it made me smile. Like a flip on like Rolling Stones or something. Yeah. This is the heaviest when you know it's really on.

28:20Yeah, it wasn't hard to write because there's things I say in my head. But I wasn't trying to write a poem. I was trying to put on record that, you know, my own mantras. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. And we've got a lot of Patreon questions from our patrons today. And one comes from Joel Skoda who says, and it kind of relates to this in a way. Hi, Joel. Do you typically start with music and then develop the lyrics or vice versa? When you develop an initial melody, do you have an artist in mind versus knowing it is for bleachers or do you just let the songs grow organically and then find a home?

28:53And this certainly seems like one that is just there in the moment. I let it all go. You know, I try to do things, but I fail when I try, you know, and then the things that I try to do, I always end up fucking with and then they become something I wasn't trying to do. And that's when they're interesting. You know, I think the best way to answer that question is to know what you're doing in the studio is a bit boring. You know, you're always trying to find the accidents. Once you know what you're doing, you kind of, the magic leaves.

29:23It's why I love playing synthesizers I'm not acquainted with because I get my best takes when I was like, you know, it's why the golden age when synthesizers first came out, we get the most incredible recordings of them. It's when people learn them and became tasteful and understood what all the oscillators and filters were doing and how to play with them that they just get, they sound like spa music, you know, so I just love doing things I don't know how to do. Yeah. Yeah. And, and by taking yourself to Rome, bringing the band, putting yourselves in that studio helps kind of.

29:53It shocks the system. Yeah. I don't know how the board reads the mics that, you know, so I love going home once the, once it's there and then, you know, trying to, yeah, you just, you don't, you don't, you, you want to be scared and afraid and unclear and hear yourself in new ways. And it's not a job that, that expertise is interesting in. I hate when anyone claims to be someone who knows exactly what to do with a song or with an album, because if someone says, oh, I know what to do with this, I think, well, that can't

30:26be the most interesting idea if you're sure. And that's how I approach all this stuff. A bit frustrating sometimes. Yeah. Um, should we have a, another blast to that end so we can round things off for, I'm not sure to me. Yeah. I guess the song really takes flight in the last rant. Started the car, took me on. Shout it out, shout it out. Shout it out, shout it out. Shout it out, shout it out. Shout it out, shout it out. Oh, you got to shout it out. Shout it out, shout it out. Shout it out, shout it out.

30:59Shout it out, shout it out. Oh, you got to shout it out. When you want what you get. When you get what you want. It's the heaviest. When you know it's really on. That's the time to hold tight. Yeah, it's the time to hold on. As the stakes get wide. Time to draw the midlines.

31:31It ain't time to roll. That is the time to stand. Inside of every truth. What it means to be a man. When you want what you get. When you get what you want. And all of that fear Comes out in the big one. I'm not joking at all.

32:03I'm not joking by bleachers. And it was really interesting seeing that session. And how you recorded it. But also to see what you see as a very basic recording. In terms of the ingredients. But also to illustrate what you could have done. Was really interesting to see. Also the speed that you worked. And quickly double track those brass parts. Put a little effect. And so that shows what you could do. The realm of possibility. And how quickly you can achieve that.

32:34But also how important it was to you. To not do that this time. You know what you can do. And often your body just does it. And then you feel bored. Because you've done it. So you just know. It's like a gut feeling. And it's the most important thing with recordings. Because it's all this like circular thing. You know the genes get bigger. The genes get smaller. You know. Back and forth. Back and forth. And so you're just looking for the thing that shocks you.

33:04It's you know. There hasn't been much sonic invention. At this point. In about 20 or 30 years. From a frequency point of view. Right. So if you think about the history of recorded music. There are literally new frequencies. Like the TR-808 changed music. Because that frequency did not exist. You know. You listen to George Martin records. They're not. There's no sub on that literal frequency. So you know. And then you get into crazy sampling. And chopping and all this stuff. But we've reached this point. Like a lot of things in modernity. Where it's like.

33:34The form is set. So it's just about what you do in it. So now I'm just looking for corners of it. That are like. Really interesting. In that moment. That feel. Absolutely shocking. And to me a lot of. You know. Live. Simple recording bones. And all. Do that right now. But I feel very. Very. Uninterested in anything. That is trying to shock me. Outside of emotionally. Yeah. You know. It's a bit like food. Right. You know.

34:04Like. We did like. Asian. Mexican. Polish cuisine. All janned into one. Egg. With foam shooting out of it. And everyone's like. You know. And now. It's just sort of like. We're going to take a break. Cool. The next song. We're going to look at. Is which we got two. To choose from. Let's do. We should talk. Okay. Excellent. That's up next.

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Discussing We Should Talk

36:09The next song we're going to look at. From the new Bleach's record. Everyone for 10 minutes. Is We Should Talk. But before that. Let's have a couple more questions. From our patrons on Patreon. The first comes from Lucas Howard. Who says. How do you stop hearing a track. As a bunch of individual parts. And start hearing it. As one cohesive thing. When I listen back to my own stuff. It feels like I'm reading a word document. Instead of experiencing a song. Well everyone has their own barometer. For me. Yeah. I don't know anything. You're doing Lucas. But maybe that means you're not done.

36:39Maybe that means there's too many things. Maybe not enough. I don't know. But I always have a moment. Where I leave the studio. Well important to listen outside the studio. And when I'm walking around. Or driving. And I hear something. Like. That's just one thing. That's just a song. And there it is. And it's best outfit. It's like a person. When you look at someone. Not see. You know. Their dumb shirt. And their dumb hat. And their weird shoes. And they're this. And it's like. Oh nice outfit. You know.

37:09You just. It's just a feeling. So sorry for the annoying answer. But I think you just. You know. And you know. And if you don't know. Then you're still working. Yeah. Yeah. Brian. Valentin Hall. What was your best. Aha. Moment this year. In learning a new production technique. In any door. Or last year. In 2025. Uh. I. Feel. I've been doing a lot of like. Like treating the vocals. Completely separate from the track. Which has been a big. Aha moment. Because I usually love to like.

37:39Have them be in relationship. To the track. You know. Like. Have. You know. Certain reverbs. Like connect. So there's frequencies. That are similar. And then some different. Also other. Uh. Standing above. But also sitting in. And lately. I've just been. I don't know. Maybe it's a bunch of. Lou Reed recordings. I've been listening to. Or like. Later Beatles stuff. Where the vocals. Are just. Completely. You hear the overdubness. In the most. Specific way. Is this an aesthetic.

38:09That has been really. Fun for me. And. Yielded some really cool results. Interesting. Right. And dig into it. We had a band. We had a life. We had dreams. In a van. We wrote our own. Bible Supreme. Then you got a house. A lawn. A wife. And a kid. And those dreams. Turn to memories. And that's where it ends. But I still feel our pack. Running through my head. Yeah. I still feel our pack. Every time. I'm on the edge. We should talk.

38:38We should talk.

38:54We should talk. We should talk.

38:59we should a little taste of we should talk by bleachers from everyone for 10 minutes and jack when i was listening to this i immediately thought oh who's he talking about and and it sounds you're you're particularly exciting a person or a particular era but then i realized just how many different projects and bands kind of you've been in you know and it could be any of them in a way because let me ask you a different question who did it make you think of

39:30that you need to talk to well there's lots of people in paging dr freud yeah no it's that's why it connects because it makes you think that well yeah so i mean i can tell you who i'm talking about but it's a little irrelevant because like all the songs we're talking about this before it's like i tell a personal story to ask a bigger question if i tell a personal story it makes my asking of the question have weight you know if i wrote a song that was just like you know who do you need to talk to wiley who do you need to talk to be real with yourself look in the mirror who do you need

40:03to talk to man you know it's like shut the fuck up when you put yourself on the line it makes the question fair to ask uh so i i had this idea of uh i had an idea for a song but you know before i wrote a song i i had it like a poem i saw it in my head like okay like three different people three different phases of life no fuck you no point in figure just like we lived a life together and now it's gone we should talk it it it's not even there's no wisdom in the song it's just how

40:37weird i would assume you're thinking of someone right now so everyone in the room is like you live a whole life with someone and it's i guess it's weird to admit that people come in and out of your life that some people are for seasons and some people are forever you don't admit that when you're with them you know like all you guys sitting over there it's like you know there is this idea you will know each other forever but you won't and someone will do something that you know won't be evil but will sever something and you'll put on all your defenses of why you don't talk to them

41:10anymore but then time will pass and it'll just be like no they're not evil we just we're just not in each other's lives the same way and then the concept of we should talk i i liked that that was how i was you know it was a poem it was like we should talk we should talk we should talk i just saw it as a button i didn't think it was this like massive chorus which to me it turned out to be a very again them of course uh but i just felt compelled to write about it more in like a how weird and i also thought a lot i listened to the street a lot how people talk and everyone you know i just

41:44noticed these days just like oh yeah he's such a fucking piece of shit oh yeah well she's a narcissist oh well fuck them you know like they don't know what they're talking about well have you met his dad you know of course he's such a piece of shit well i mean look at his cousin like she's a fucking you know so much just like the tenor of how we communicate is basically shit talk it's become a a national or global language um it's extremely boring because it ends the conversation this happened to me well they're a piece of shit bye you know it's well what if people aren't evil

42:18well then i guess you have a little bit more to think about you know what if time passed what if you played a role in that what if not everything what if not everyone who leaves your life isn't trash what if what if you played a part in that and what if you admit that and then what if you figure out how that's been a gift you've brought in good ways and bad ways to many relationships so i just there's no i'm not calling anyone out i'm just telling three stories first one is someone i played music with who i no longer play music with how weird is that we had this brotherhood of music

42:53that person is still one of my closest friends but i was talking about that thing you know how odd next one is an old relationship you live a whole life with someone and it's just gone the the last one is a newer friendship that you know had a really tough course and you know i liked on that one saying you're sort of admitting you miss you miss it it felt like the last button on it but i wanted the song to feel like running and moving because it's about how life you're just moving and and

43:26and some people stay with you and some people don't and that's weird and i wanted to feel tense and i wanted to feel hopeful and i wanted to feel tense and i wanted to feel hopeful and i wanted to feel tense and i wanted it to be accessible on both of those angles constantly and the way i thought about that right off the bat was i start with just some rhythm yes i'm on the m1 i like the drums on the m1 that's just m1 drums there's no there's nothing on this track they all have their built-in sort of early 90s shania twain reverbs kind of sounds like the start of like a song like this

44:01kiss or you're still the one you know it's just and i like to do a track you know often i'll just pull up the m1 and be like let me mess around so many bad sounds in there that can become cool sounds uh in the context of a song so it's like okay cool it's a good vibe and then i just thought about just just creating a bed for myself so the first thing i do you know i want to create tension so what creates tension an arp you know something steady something unmoving

44:33where is this note gonna go yeah is it gonna go north or south is it gonna get better is it getting worse and it just sits there it feels tension you know it feels like you know john wiley walks into a room and there's a man with a mask on is it his brother or his murderer you know like so i i like that but i like that there was tempo and and you know and then right away bring the band into the room okay cool now i hear some people and then from there it's just about

45:06you know sketching out the song so so the next thing that happened was zem started playing bass and that brings in kind of like that more joyousness i play guitar on top of it kind of following all that so at this point i'm like that's when i get on the 58 and you know just crank up the tune to start going we had a band we had a life we had dreams in a van we wrote our own bible supreme then you got

45:42a house alone a wife and a kid and those dreams turn to memories and that's where it ends and i just kind of start singing my poem i wrote you know not really thinking about it um but the real aha moment was you know i'm like running through my head still feel our pack every time i'm on the edge we should talk as soon as i said we should talk you know i remember we didn't know where to go from there and that's when we realized you know to go to that suspended feeling and to bring in

46:12the really sad stuff this junip that's such like a clearing moment like so introspective i think i'm born to run a lot uh the chorus is tramps like i was born to run bruce is great at this i'm on fire these these sort of like tiny choruses so sometimes i write a tiny chorus and then i think to myself i gotta write a chorus and then i go home and it's not that i say oh i just wrote the

46:49best chorus of all time i just say i don't really want anything else that's the whole thing like what am i gonna do like we should talk you know trying to lift it it's like that's the goddamn chorus it's the whole goddamn sentiment there's nothing else to say i guess i could say it again we should talk and then i could get a little cute with it and just say we should we should and i was so happy with it because it kind of came out of nowhere so then i start doing

47:25little things so then it's like okay well let me let me make it a little more clear that's the hook so i put a tc helicon on one of the vocals we should talk which clearly wasn't even set to the right tuning but it's cool put another we should talk a few other voices we should talk my money is we should talk just make it a little bit more of a moment so it's like you know we're going from feel our pack every time my money is we should talk it just makes it a little bit more triumphed and as soon as i heard that we should talk

47:58i was like oh cool that's the whole goddamn song you know and then it and then this thing happens a lot this is like how a lot of songs that i've really loved how they've been recorded it sounds like even like i want to get better where they're essentially folk songs but recorded the exact opposite way you know and so that led me to the next bit which is which first thing we played it on was a trace i think it's a cuban instrument you know that guitar

48:30no i don't it's got three strings yeah and it lives in that sort of 12 stringy mandolin world and then i doubled it with a baritone six string playing up high which is kind of weird and another baritone on top doing this just kind of being a piece of shit and then a direct ovation which is a really interesting tone kind of gives you like lindsey buckingham tones

49:02so now i have all these like sort of static-y weird hitting baritones and traces and they're following along and then also giving me my line and they're a bit sloppy but in context you know the slop when you have something that's really programmed is they add a little like something's like fleetwood mackie like a little it's like

49:39they had like a it's a little life to it but i really kept thinking about this like a folk song i remember telling everyone that they're like what are you talking about you know but just like where it's like here's space like i'm singing nothing's going on i'm not singing a lead happens which is just very harmonica energy but that that's the core pieces to this and then once i have something incredibly tight you know that art makes it so rigid that then it just became about finding bits that could just throw it off a little bit and get on the

50:16moog with some delay you know little bits here and there yeah that's just a moog with delay told the drummers to go in and just start messing around with some fills just moments that don't take away from how tight we are but can just remind you that we're not living on this grid

50:49and that's something i do very often so if i mute everything and just kind of give the i guess we could call them like uh like personality bits they kind of sound interesting on their own because everything is so tight in a song like this and so i'll do a lot of tracking that's just just vibe just like literal vibe tracks and they kind of even though they're all different instruments they're really doing the same thing almost like almost like if my band was an orchestra warming up is how i see it

51:29so right there you have uh noise from uh model d moog you have my drummer is just literally just whacking around on the drums you have a direct ovation you have baritone guitars you have trace you have a banjo that is played and it's just a big shit storm that i can pull in and out to take away from the the rigidness yeah it's a totally fucking different song but in context

52:00the grid is so locked with with my m1 drums that um that's that's that's the big trick of this song is is is using all that to take you in and out i want to show you one more thing which is really exciting which is i wanted to have a long note somewhere so i was like okay hold on i heard like a like a you know like like a long note that was like not really in key but just hovering around the key

52:37and so we turned the space echo we just turned the return really loud and i turned the uh not even the echo but the verb up not the verb sorry no verb all echo so i could just uh play with the time of it and just found the pitch and that's where we got this sound which is only a space echo just a space echo feeding back and me just diving and finding the pitch but it's so suspenseful because it's not it's just give you some key

53:08it's just out of tune but it's so satisfying i was playing with it and it was just the final piece that just um can we can we hear that in the context of the whole song like delightfully out of tune

53:42it's like almost like the looming concept of we should talk is that sound like it's dissonant but but that that that to me is like you know sometimes with this one it was that rigidity that i started with of you know gritted m1 drums and the arp clock juno you know that's like some new order shit right there it's like i just wanted to present like absurd humanity out of time drums banjos you know bad tuning because that shit so locked

54:20it felt like the um the point of the song like you know life goes on jibba jibba jibba jibba jibba jibba jibba you know life goes on i'm on a track i'm on a track i can't be taken off this track right you know i'm moving i'm moving i'm moving and then but then like these like things happen that don't really add up completely and throw you in different directions yeah but you've got this great structure for the song and but to to shake it up and keep it

54:52interesting you can add in all those different things but you need the structure because that helps you tell the story and make those contrast well it's a folk song yeah no matter how it sounds it's a folk song yeah you know three three blocks ending the same way three different stories all servicing the same point the very end one human moment of but i really miss hanging on each other's words speaks to everyone in the song yeah but i i love writing a folk song and then producing it in the opposite way yeah yeah and it has tension and release you were looking for tension you keep the

55:26tension throughout the course the song yeah the release comes which we should talk but then there's also further release because of all these extra ingredients you're chucking in yeah um and it keeps us hooked and interested but there's a there's this lovely payoff in a way you know the the the hope that is offered at the end and i mean when you immediately started recording those vocals did you put any processing on your i just put a shitload of tune on it which is the only song i sing through tune there's nothing really else on it you know there's a little bitty cue or whatever but it's just a

55:5658 and just in the room trying to like sketch out this idea and sometimes i write with like a little bit tune on but i never keep it i always then want to go and get like a really human vocal take but you sometimes you work in opposites like this song is so personal and the story is so personal that i felt like the tuning made it feel like sadder like i was trying to figure something out i don't know it just it just really struck me and i just i just wanted to um you know when i did it other ways it just didn't have the same duality of like you know me stuck in the machine it was more

56:33exciting on this song than trying to do this like incredibly organic recording which is more the theme of the whole album yeah yeah i feel like that sometimes when i hear tuning i'm like oh tuning whatever and then as soon as i hear it i'm like oh the person's stuck in there i wonder if i'll ever get out that's how i hear myself in the song trapped yeah yeah trapped in in the uh forward motion of life yeah yeah fascinating i've always find it fascinating when you think that you can represent that thought through sound yeah well it's never what you think you know it's like

57:07okay tune vocoder um digital cold uh you know messed with fixed perfect rarely you know when i hear tune sometimes it often like yeah like i said it makes me feel like a soul is trapped somewhere so you know someone's screaming get me out of here in auto-tune it would be very interesting you know someone screaming get me out of here into a 58 with nothing on it i would be like you can leave like doors open so you play with them and you find things and you know

57:43and those rules never add up correctly but in different songs they do you know and it's so crazy specifically vocal treatment because it's so tied to lyrics obviously everything but specifically vocal treatment god what what reverb can do to a you know if you play the song you know if i had um a house alone a wife and a kid and those dreams turn to memory i had like a spring on very cool tone but like totally impersonal at that point you mean if i had like uh

58:19my favorite slap like a echo boy right if i had that on very cool tone extremely not personal compared to what i need you know and so all these vocals and i have all these different vocoders and and and things happening they um they're all dry they're all that man stuck in there you know i'm either stuck behind the auto-tune i'm stuck

58:55behind the tc helicon all these things let's see if we had a dream in a van we wrote our own bible something a lot right the superman song it's like i liked it the song is inertia in its own way you know i'm not like i don't have a plan to get out i don't know how i got in i'm just standing in the moment just being like here i am and you and i don't talk anymore there's not like and so i'm gonna do this or like fuck i wish i didn't make that left turn it's just it's the song is stunned

59:31it's the song is like stunned i'm just there and i'm just like we had this we had that and now we don't we should talk we did this we did that now we don't we should talk it's so um stunned so so digital effects really became a good friend to me in in in that context but once again i didn't go home and think i'm gonna do this song stun and all the art the art means moving forward but the sort of long hanging notes and they're sort of dissonant that's like the weird

1:00:01like inertia of of the stuckness of it all and then i'll present it through tc helicon and a vc10 you know old vocoder and autotune so i'm mixing past and present of like machine it's not it's just you hear it and you're like oh that's what it's doing how cool but you know i think the whole like happy accident thing is so annoying when people talk about that but it is very true i feel like every studio thing is like oh yeah i dropped my coffee on the piano and then it was like let it be whoa you know it's like it's annoying but it is true you know john left the room and he came back and he was like there

1:00:37was a blackbird on the window you know like it is it i get annoyed when i hear people on shows like yours be like yeah tell those stories like someone broke the base and that's how we wrote closer by nine inch nails written by nondescript british person yeah but it's true you know it's just fucking around with the band i got this little folk song we should talk there's the vocoder it's plugged in zem just starts playing this bass thing you know and by the way a hundred times we do this

1:01:11and it doesn't work got a little song everyone plays it nope i'm bored yeah but it is true and it's annoying because it it it it projects something that is annoying but that but that's what it is it's more i think our culture now has made it more annoying because if you look at like what a lot of us see so much of the world is and you too this is how i built a table and you can do you know what i mean yeah this is how i took my body from unhealthy to healthy you know this is how i took my face from

1:01:43fat to skinny and it's like that's not how it works you mean like i didn't have hair now i have hair like i wanted song i made song and so i think there's a frustration because the world presents itself to be very figureoutable i i'm me too like sometimes i'm like okay yeah yeah tell me how to do it great and so when some other fuckers they're being like yeah i don't know we're whacking on the things and something was half unplugged and it made this cool sound blah blah and the space echo was feeding back and it was out of tune and somehow it worked it's just like oh what but that's the job it's so powerless

1:02:18you know anyone who wants to tell you how to do it isn't very good at doing it a lot of cool tricks you know kind of like living life that's why i like making music and writing it's like there's things to remember you know don't be mean don't point the finger outward if you point the finger outward point it inward well recorded things are pretty cool great players are cool you know there's no shortcuts but most of the time a lot of the greatness does come from

1:02:43randomness that you can't you can't plan for yeah yeah but at the same time you do it you put yourself in the position and you're doing it which is how those moments yeah arrive the only the only thing i am positive of that i would ever impart onto anyone is to do it dedicate your life to doing something one thing not doing a million things like ship but doing one thing i make music and i and i make music in in studio i make it on the stage i do i do whatever but i make music i think about music all day long i think about life becoming music and and that's the only thing that i've noticed

1:03:16is that if i take my hand off that wheel which i don't often but a few times i have i don't i don't feel myself i don't hear myself if i stay really focused i can live in utter frustration but the music happens yeah really interesting let's have a blast of the ending and we'll have another break and then we'll look at a third song i really miss hanging on each other's words each other's words we should talk

1:03:50we should talk i love all the different random sounds within that yeah so cool um right we're going to go to i love all the different random sounds within that yeah so cool um right we're going to take a

1:04:28quick break and the next one we're going to look at is dancing yeah the new linkedin hiring pro can't undo your last tire the human postponer they were the master of one phrase i'll circle back on that but three months later you were the one doing all their work and wondering how big that circle is but linkedin hiring pro can take the hiring load off your plate by automating the hiring busy work from the initial job post to scheduling interviews hire right the first time with linkedin hiring pro

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Building the track Dancing

1:05:37minutes is dancing but just before that i'm going to ask another patreon question this time from aditya saputra what is something you do in production that people wouldn't notice but actually makes a huge difference um recording way or muting a lot of vocals so like sometimes the impression of a lot of things is more powerful than a lot of things so i'll be specific so if i want like a sound

1:06:08like a big vocal part with a lot of people it's like often like you know five track ten track you know a bunch of harmonies pandem here here a lot of vocals right and then you get into the session and you're looking and mixing and you realize that you're kind of hitting those sonic walls so you know if you mute half of it it actually starts to sound bigger because there's more space for those vocals to go places for each one to be more heard so that's something that you know if i if i played a and b you might not hyper notice but it's doing a very like subtle thing where it's like breathing by being

1:06:41uh less so there's a lot of like at the end like muting and making sure that stacking is doing what i want it to do not what i think it's doing because i stacked it yeah yeah totally right let's have a a blast of the master of dancing and we can find out how you created it

1:07:14do you think about it when you think about it do you think about it when you think about do you think about it when you think about it do you think about it when you think about it

1:07:34scaling a nice wall trying to move on things seem to fade now things seem to fade now living with heartbreak there's no solution things seem to fade now things seem to fade now making your friends like asking for giving it's dancing

1:08:01so just a little taste of dancing there by bleachers how did this one start this is a really interesting song and i'll show you how i did it but i recorded it twice and then i realized the best version was the two of them on top of each other which made sense later because i you know elliot smith used to he didn't just double track his vocal or guitar he would do the performance twice guitar and vocal and it created a really interesting phase and so it's a very very sad song about you know it's about

1:08:34death but the different you know so often with grief it's i i miss you i'm scared i'm broken you know that kind of world and this is an angry run how could you let me do this alone and then the line is glory to the ones who are left hallelujah so all of us who are stuck here on earth

1:08:53sounds like but yeah it was an interesting place to write from like i've written so much about grief and death that i i'm just interested in exploring different angles of it usually i stay in the very wistful place of passage of time and that when you lose something after a lot of soul searching what you're left with is how lucky you were to have something worth losing that's what you're in that's what i'm often left with is to have a rich life is to have is to put yourself on the line and that you know you have to kind of get messy and have things worth losing but

1:09:29there's this other corner of it which i want to write about i had this lyric scaling an ice wall it's like you know that feeling like you know like trying to run underwater i was looking for like a better metaphor for that and i thought scaling an ice wall was so sad and in the metaphor i don't have like picks you know i'm not like it's not like a netflix documentary where i'm doing it well i'm just like trying to scale an ice wall and it's a much darker view on life so i had this this general poem you know how could you let me do this alone um it's an interesting place to write from

1:10:01you know a bit of rage at the at the dead person um there's also hope to it because it speaks to whatever after whatever is afterlife as a um beautiful place and this being the stressful place which you know religion and at its best that i've read seems to echo that you know that this is the hard part you know i guess some of the christians have hell that's tough i don't buy that do you no no no i just couldn't tell if you were like yeah yeah well you know christ is god and you should

1:10:33go yourself which would be fine but i just like the idea that this here is is the messy part and then afterwards something else so i liked feeling left in the song so well how the do you record that is tough because i want it to be masked and present so you know i could take you through literally how i recorded it but the interesting most interesting part is that it's two recordings on top of each other this is recording one

1:11:04actually done at church studios in london oh right okay and crown i lived out here for about a month and a half and and did a lot of work on the album yeah and it was really nice to be here the british people are cool and they understand music in a really interesting way or or i perceive them to understand music so when i'd walk the streets and listen to my tapes from the day i would look around and imagine everyone you know knowing every word to every stone roses and beatles album and you know happy mondays and all the music i love the most which i think is probably true but it

1:11:39didn't matter because it was my projection so i recorded this is in this way where i pretty much wrote the song the guitar is detuned and the recording of it is nothing to write home about it was an acoustic song so one guitar and double track vocal

1:11:54quick note on double tracking without the double it's too precious

1:12:03it's actually less sad the double that dissonance of that rub of not perfectly matching yourself it actually feels like you know that phrase i'm besides myself um that's an amazing phrase it's about it's about uh dissonance it's about um disassociation you know so one vocal trying to move on very present person talking two vocals

1:12:35it's almost like a blurred human you like feel the person's ghost too so i i love that for a song but that is a double of that one take no i sang it twice oh you sang it yeah yeah but but it's not the the second version that you know no no that's this is one take so this is this is v1 yeah

1:13:01you hear what that song is it is lovely and i was very happy with that song but but but when a song means so much to you you find yourself searching until it's truly that and and i would say this is one of my favorite recordings i've ever done so i had that version and then there was another version you know i i got the all my harpsichords and whatnot that i showed you on i'm not joking so i have all these new harpsichords i get i go back to new york

1:13:31and i'm utterly around and so i do i'm imagining you donning a mozart wig every time i i i in my head i have one yeah um you know and and me for watching amadeus and becoming inspired like y'all can write your thing pieces on that but i am what i am and it's let me down a good path so then i do this version that is a totally different vocal take you know here's my older one and then the blue one so so i get i i use pro tools in a very like kindergarten way you know in my head

1:14:04i'm no synesthetic or i don't have synesthesia or whatever the right verbiage is but i bass is red not because i see it that way because i've always done it bass is red vocals are blue auxiliary vocals are different versions of blue right guitars are green uh you know auxiliary tracks you know noises sort of candy things are yellow and in this one i had to you know my other lead vocals are orange brown which they never are but that denoted the old take so this is take two

1:14:36and i was thinking about street hassle and songs like how do i take an acoustic song and not make an acoustic song so just let's just be freewheeling living with heartbreak every joy is just a reminder just a reminder someone has just watched amadeus and and this is beautiful to me but it's a little bit of a bastardization of the form of the song right um and so then that's when i call laura who engineers and mixes everything with me and you know

1:15:09have one of those hard conversations where i'm like take this session in this session these parts of the put them together you know like i just get like i need to hear it so i put the two together i i put back in my acoustic guitar and my other vocal take and now these are the two on top of each other

1:15:32to me and it sounds simple enough but there's you know this is like the culmination of so many vocal takes like there was this double track in new york just kind of like a little dead sounding there's this single track in new york living with super dead there's this other double track from new york

1:15:51a little more tender there's the version one double vocal much more breathy i just found a space that connected all of those things and they were just two versions on top of each other and once i heard that i started to see a path to finish the song which was going to be an acoustic song with an incredibly ornate amount of production that would secretly be in there and so what that looks like is this you know when you hear the song you're mostly living with v1 which is so the first thing i do is i put all

1:16:28my harpsichords back in which as we just heard are pretty ornate

1:16:50you have that whole world you have clavichords you have the emu sampler just kind of holding these stagnant notes

1:17:08that says korg i don't know which korg that would be it's cool you have guitars there's a lot of tremolo on them

1:17:22so this whole world now gets built

1:17:30and i think what i love about is it feels like a rushing like kaleidoscope of memory something happens when you start recording enough things that it becomes unplaceable like i cease to hear the electric guitar i cease to hear the specific harpsichord takes the synth i just hear

1:17:53yeah it's like this kaleidoscope of memory and when you put that in all together and then it's gone now you're in an acoustic song and this is all riding manually you can see all these rides

1:18:20another burst of it

1:18:22so that was gone trial and error or trying to play them at the same time and thinking i don't need that now well mostly trying to play at the same time you know just just making if you look at like this automation here just just you know basically i treat pro tools like i would treat a board you know manual automation isn't isn't super common on pro tools you know because everyone needed to start drawing it but like it's so you know that's what you would do with a fader you know you go in you say i want this burst to be and go away and then right you know that was obviously a bit wild but but so i i automate

1:19:01everything as you can see like that so you know this is an example of a song where i took an acoustic version and i took a really esoteric version put them together and then automated the whole thing so it just lived as more than an acoustic track i almost wanted the these like memories to be there um and that was also a cool thing i did with these vocals which you know kind of had this idea of like a string part which i mapped out

1:19:30and i thought okay this will be the cello

1:19:35these will be kind of

1:19:38pencil and then there'll be like some plucked violin going like

1:19:46put it all together

1:19:50so i kind of wrote this stagnant little string part that i would do and thought i would send it to bobby and have strings recorded and then i realized you know this person doing it drowned in reverb is really like sadder it feels like it's like blips of memory

1:20:10so that's a perfect example of like you know in my head i'm like okay the strings will come in here and then i do that not even thinking you know it's just one take you know kind of pitchy and just doing what they do and they've got reverb on them to make it kind of sound cool and then you hear it and it you know whenever something gives you a special feeling like i thought glory to the ones who were left hallelujah then i hear all these people going you know it made me think of all the people stuck on earth like that's all of us like running around someone's like uh and someone's like

1:20:41and you know i wasn't like i'm going to make this little chorus of everyone running around trying to have a life but you hear it and then you think of something bigger than the music yeah it's great again i mean we we mentioned the fortuitousness of of recording and writing and and that kind of ties in with that in a way you're sketching an idea you're doing it immediately with your voice because that's the simplest way of doing it and then you realize oh no actually that that reflects yeah

1:21:11well you have these aha moments of like yeah like i said i wasn't like and then you'll hear like all the townspeople rushing around but i heard it and i was like oh it you know sounds like a million church mice you know trying it's just like you have these like almost like cartoon visions in your head and when you get those they kind of make you laugh and that's when you know you've done something good when you kind of see it like a movie but and you know if you look at how many vocals are on the song too this is a really important concept of like how many times and how many different ways i tracked

1:21:42the song just to get the right kind of dissonance so many tracks happening living with heartbreak and you know creates a very simple thing when it's all put together

1:22:24together but sometimes i'll do a vocal take and just like it and sometimes i'll double it whatever and then sometimes i'll just like record a song many many times and you can see here like just sort of grab a few pieces that are nice from this one or this one you know there's a there's a huge collage here that just ended up being what it needed to sound like to me that happens when a song needs to sound like a memory you know like i said that sort of kaleidoscope feeling i think if i sat down and recorded the song in one place it would have been a little reductive for what it is it feels like

1:22:58like a video of like old times with a knowingness playing on top of it yeah i mean you said essentially it's two versions of the song but but all those other vocals are they from other attempts yeah so basically you know my two versions like like v1 is guitar and a double track

1:23:24v2 is a double track and harpsichords which sounds like this living with heartbreak every joy i'm singing a little silly and then everything else all these vocals below these are once i get the sense of it i need a tougher take you know i just start adding and kind of right sketching it out but but that was the first time i'd ever done that truly taken i record many different versions of songs but truly taken two songs just played them on top of each other and

1:23:57thought oh that's interesting uh so that'll be a trick that will probably never work again but now it's kind of in my back pocket of like i don't know play them at the same time yeah yeah and it does seem to bring two worlds in a way yeah because you know the the original occupies that elliott smith world the the second version i mean it's funny whenever i hear harpsichord with in pop music i think of the late 60s and bands like the left bank and that kind of baroque pop that was around then and and you're you're kind of bringing those two to together no yeah well the harpsichord you know

1:24:31it pops up on this album and the clavichord too they're just lost sounds like oh they almost became too specific yeah and then they're gone so there is a literalness to some recorded music where it's like well what have what have you not heard in a while try that you know yeah um let's have a blast to the ending and then we'll have a couple more questions for you how could you let me do this

1:25:09Sha-la-la, no dying, it's not romantic, this young Sha-la-la, Sha-la-la-la, how could you let me do this? So glory to the ones who were left, hallelujah. Glory to the ones who were left, hallelujah. Glory to the ones who were left, hallelujah.

1:25:39It is Dancing by Bleachers from everyone for 10 minutes, and I'm going to hold you here for another few minutes. Yeah, please. Jack, we have some more Patreon questions. One from Mackie who says, how did you build your intuition for music that sounds good? And following that, how did you learn to trust that intuition when building out the final work? I don't know how I built it. I've just always had my, I've always believed in my gut on stuff, and I just follow it. It's all I have. That's just a daily reminder, you know, just whatever I feel.

1:26:12I guess when you're first getting involved in music, you know, absorbing as much as possible, learning from that experience can be a good way of building an intuition. I just love to play, and I would get lost in playing. I still do. And then what happens when I get lost feels like, I guess the best way to answer that, bit of an intense question, but I'm trying to think of a way to answer somewhat literally, the things that happen that if the world didn't exist, you feel like just sound like your soul, that's all that you have, right?

1:26:43That's all there is. So I think it's important to let yourself get lost and then admit what excites you and not think about it through the lens of anything else. Yeah. So that's it. I can't please anyone. There's an interesting question from Serena Smith, who says, You've done so much to help women artists be empowered, Sabrina's latest album being a great example. How does that commitment translate into the technical side of the studio, specifically with engineers and producers where women are still so underrepresented? What are the best ways to tackle that gap and ensure the studio feels like a genuinely safe and welcoming space for women to contribute?

1:27:18Well, I've made all my albums with Laura Sisk, you know, pretty much since I've started. So that, that lack of representation is very real and the stats are stunning. But in our little world, you know, it's, it's me and Laura making all the albums. So, you know, I think you just, you just, I think it's as simple as, is who you hire and who you work with is how the shit changes. Yeah. Yeah. And, but do you think people should be conscious about that? I mean, your relationship with Laura is one, a friendship that, that's probably how it began, that what you didn't consciously think, right?

1:27:56No, I started working with Laura because she's the best engineer I ever worked with. Right. Period. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I met her and I was making the first Bleachers album and I never had met anyone that good. So that was that. Yeah. You know, but I do think her presence and her genius and her work makes it, you know, I think, I think opens a lot of doors. And, you know, you know, a lot of, some of those fields have, have, have just been like decided that they're male dominated for no actual reason.

1:28:31Um, but it seems like, you know, she's really connected with the school she went to. And I think there's a lot more, I think there's a lot more women coming up through, through that school and in general into those technical fields. Yeah. Certainly hope. Um, one more patron question, um, from Rob Lasker, I feel like a big identifier in your sound of vision is gear that feels timeless. Lindrum, M1, copycat, et cetera. How often are you experimenting with new gear and plugins versus focusing on what you know works and letting the songs be the focus?

1:29:03Constantly. I just don't like experimenting with something that's like a bad version of a thing, you know? So like if something is like a, a new soft synth version of a classic synth, that doesn't interest me a ton. But I, I pretty much am vacillating between modern and classic constantly. And, and I really like the interplay between them too. You know, if you record something incredibly digital, what happens if you put it through tape? Sometimes you get some really interesting stuff, just blurring the whole goddamn thing, which I think is, is where we're at. You know, it's a bit irrelevant to me for something to be two placeable.

Favorite gear and production choices

1:29:37Going on to our questions. So, I mean, you've answered these before, but it's always good to get a fresh take. So the general one is about tech, a piece of equipment or an instrument or something that was specific to this project to everyone for 10 minutes. I, the harpsichord really played a very special piece and I used it in very different ways. Sometimes I use it as a harpsichord, sometimes I use it as like a big stacking reverb-y dreamscape. And sometimes I use it in place of where I would put something very like sharp and placeable, you know, where I would put a Celeste or a Glockenspiel or like a tubular bell.

1:30:15So you, you find these characters for any given album that become like a through line. And what I love about it, what I love about it literally is that I haven't heard it in a long time. I love how it feels, this like weird tactile-ness. It's a percussion instrument and a piano kind of in the same way. You know, you can't blur the notes the way you can with like a piano. Like everything is almost like a B3 with the percussion way up. You hear every percussive hit. And it just became a character that I got very excited about, mostly just because I don't see a lot of people using them.

1:30:47You know, so it made me feel new and excited and like I was putting this filter outfit on it that, that, that, and I'm bringing it on tour and it's just, it's just a character now. And you, you, you, you find these things. I've had them in the past in different, you know, when I was, when the first Bleacher's album was the Juno 6, it just like spoke to me in this way. And, and it wasn't being used like crazy at that time. So this was sort of like before the 80s explosion. So I just kind of was listening upstairs at Eric and playing the Juno 6 and feeling so new about it.

1:31:22Songs are songs. Songs have to be great, period. They have to sound like the soul shooting out. But production is, you have to match the excitement of the songs and finding a new piece of gear or something that sets you on fire. It, often every album I've ever made, it's usually one thing that really propelled it. And then I tailor around it, you know, like, okay, the drums, this or that, blah, blah, blah. But the Lin, the harpsichord and the baritone guitar, I would say are the heroes of this album.

1:31:54Those are these like defining factors that shoot out and, and like ground it in its own world. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And I'm always thinking, I'm always just sitting online looking for something that you just, you know it when you see it. You know, I had that moment with the princess guitar where I was like, ah, love that guitar. And I don't see it anywhere. And you're not trying to be different. You're just excited and you just find something.

1:32:16And then often they get used to death and that is what it is. But, you know, it's that comfort shock thing, you know, bleachers, like the saxophones, the double track vocals, the, you know, this like, this like heavy, hopeful, but mourning low end that like lives through things. It's like, I love those things that are so honest and comforting to our sound. But then the shock, you know, of like bringing both in dancing. When we went through that, it's a perfect example. You do too much of either and you fuck it up. You know, if you go too shocking, it almost feels safe because you're living in the safety of how bizarre something is.

1:32:50If you go too comforting, it is also safe. So you're looking for that perfect blend and those things, you know, that harpsichord and the baritone guitar and I would play them. I would be like, oh, this is like, this is so thrilling to me. Our last question is about advice, whether you've learned anything since we last spoke to you that you would share with other people. Yeah, a ton. I learn the same thing I learn over and over again, but I learn it in different ways and it never doesn't stun me, which is that whatever is going on is irrelevant. If it's going on, it's already over and it's just so important to not let that pull you and take you and, you know, culture and trends and things that are happening.

1:33:33If you pay any attention to them, they just sort of smooth out your edges and then you get sort of lost in it. You know, if you care about the tide, then you also have to leave with the tide and I just always am reminded of that because there's, you know, we as people who make things can have these feelings of feeling. Left out or other or just to the left or right of what's happening. That's where you want to be. That's the only place you want to be. That's the only thing that lasts. You know, if you're in the center of what's happening, then you have to at some point be what's not happening.

1:34:06But it's, you know, there's a lot of just reinvesting in that concept over and over and over again. Like a meditation of just, I only have my own barometer and the second I bend that towards something external is the second I'm done. Really interesting. Jack, thank you so much for giving us your time. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me again. And sharing your work. It's been absolutely fascinating. Let's have another selection from everyone for 10 minutes to round things off. An outro selection. All right, let's leave with Upstairs at ELS.

1:34:39It's the last song in the album, but it's essentially, the album ends with, I'm not joking, and then Upstairs at ELS is kind of a roll credits. It's about being at the studio with your friends. Fantastic.

1:34:51Thanks again, Jack. Thank you, guys. And this is Upstairs at ELS is Bleachers on Tape Notes.

1:35:03Thank you for listening. And in particular, thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on Patreon. I'm just one part of the team that brings you Tape Notes, and it relies on your support. But access to Patreon includes the full-length videos of new episodes where possible, ad-free episodes, and detailed gear lists, among many other things. If you'd like to join, head to the link on our socials or website. For pictures, highlight clips, and behind-the-scenes content, head to our Instagram or YouTube channel. And on Discord, you can join the growing Tape Notes community.

1:35:34Once again, thank you for listening. Until next time, goodbye. What you call heaven or cold fire You got a dream, I got a night Me and my friends drinking on a road And we are, we are, we are, we are what we say We got a word and we got a way Me and my friends drinking on a way Now I'm working in a Sunday park with Lee Smiles and says it's hard to believe As we pass Chester up on her Head to waist and make a left

1:36:04Up the stairs and out the bed There's blue and there's red There's cloud in her vest She's called heaven or cold fire You got a dream, I got a night Me and my friends drinking on a road We are, we are, we are, we are what we say We got a word and we got a way Me and my friends drinking on a road And we really lost the plot Like all my friends are going to be

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