TN:191 Lizzy McAlpine, Mason Stoops, Taylor Mackall & Omar Akrouche

Introduction

0:00Hello, I'm John Kennedy, and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes is Lizzie McAlpine with producers Mason Stoops, Taylor Mackle, and engineer Omar Akroosh. This is the third time that we've got to dig into Lizzie's music, and it's been really amazing to see that world around her grow and develop. There's a real sense of community in the way Lizzie makes music with Mason and Taylor, not only producing the records with her, but being part of her live band as well. And Omar has recently joined them in London to perform too. It's such an

0:33expanding world, and they clearly are a family, really. They have such a good time together, and it was really great to be able to tap into that once more and witness that chemistry in person. There are so many gems that they reveal about this new album, Angel. The full video episode is available on the Tape Notes Patreon page, where you can also see gear lists from each episode, behind-the-scenes content. There's also the chance to win monthly gear and plug-in prizes, so to join us there, head over to patreon.com forward slash tapenotes.

1:04Thank you as well to our partners at Tape It for supporting the podcast. For those of you who don't know, Tape It is the iPhone voice notes recording app crafted specifically for musicians and songwriters, with fantastic features including layering new voice notes, creating markers, shared mixtapes, and so much more. To try it for yourself, and to get a special off on the pro version, head to tape.it forward slash tapenotes. But now, without further ado, let's get started.

Lizzie McAlpine and Angel

1:42Lizzie McAlpine is a singer, songwriter, and producer from Pennsylvania. Having written and recorded music throughout her teenage years, and releasing tracks online after a year of studying at Berklee College of Music, she subsequently left to pursue music full-time, releasing her debut album in 2020, Give Me a Minute, produced by Philip Etherington, Erin Ebbidge, and Dylan Withereau. Lizzie has since released two more critically acclaimed albums, 5 Seconds Flat, featuring the platinum-selling viral hit, Ceilings, and Older, her first collaboration with producers Mason Stoops

2:15and Taylor Mackle. Lizzie's fourth album, Angel, working once again with Mason and Taylor, was released in September 2026. Today, I'm at Platoon Studios, and I'm joined by Lizzie, along with producers Mason, Taylor, and engineer Omar Akrush. And what better way to start our conversation than by hearing something from Angel. This is Soldier of the Road. Soldier of the Road, you are just like me, looking for a little love, looking for a little relief.

3:07Soldier of the Road, we all march in one line. Sweat the mud on our clothes, while the drum beats the time. Soldier of the Road, I am trying to break free. Looking for a little love, looking for a little love, for a little relief.

Making Peach

3:44It is Soldier of the Road by Lizzie McAlpine from the album Angel. And I'm very pleased to say that Lizzie McAlpine is here. Hello, Lizzie. Welcome back. We've come to Platoon Studios this time around. This is your third time on the show. Yes, it is. So good to have you. And you have brought back your friends with you. We've got Mason Stoops. Hello, Mason. We've got Taylor Mackle. Hello, Taylor. Hello. And we've got a newcomer, Omar Akrush. Welcome, Omar. Yes. Welcome. Omar's at the table.

4:14So it was great to have you all here. Thanks so much for coming back on Tape Notes. Angel is the new album, the fourth album by Lizzie McAlpine. You had created this wonderful musical community the last time round, which has continued with this record. What did you think about making a new record? What did you want to do? Oh, my God. I mean, I just kind of like write all the time. So it was just this record was just going to happen. I had a lot of songs for it. And then we decided we wanted to start it with the three of us co-producing and just see see what happens. Initially, we thought it

4:48was going to be more like acoustic based, more stripped down. But then it kind of turned into something else. And I'm super stoked with what we ended up with. Yeah. Well, it's a really beautiful record. Thank you. And we're going to dig into three songs today. Omar's at the controls. So maybe if you play, we're going to look at Peach first. If you give us a little blast of Peach, that would be great. peach before dinner. You're playing in the band somewhere in Ohio. The crowd is going wild in

5:35the stands. I stand in the kitchen, one step closer to myself. Somewhere in Kentucky, you play a song for someone else. In sync, we balance our lives together. You show me how to be better. I understand now

6:08that this is all there is. A peach, a moment to love myself better. It is Peach by Liz McAlpine from Angel. So where did this one start? Oh, gosh. Well,

6:38it started just me in my house alone writing this song. Not cutting a peach. Well, it started there, obviously. I wrote this song after I was going through a breakup and I just started seeing someone new. And it was a really weird in-between moment where we were about to go on tour and I was home preparing for that. And I realized that I had free will. I was like, oh, I can do whatever

7:09I want. I was kind of finding myself after this breakup. And I was like, I'm just going to go cut myself a peach before dinner because I can. And it was a super small moment, but it just really brought me back to myself and really grounded me. And yeah, that's where it started. And then I wrote the beginning in my house. And then we were on tour backstage at Radio City and we wrote the bridge. Taylor and I wrote the bridge. I'm pretty sure we have that voice memo if you

7:42want to pull it up. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I said that to you. God, I love when a green room has a real piano. Yeah. It's a luxury. Old and kind of janky. And every time the elevator opened, it would ding really loudly. So you can hear that. Did it ding in key or was it? I was hoping it was an A-flap, but I'm not sure. Probably not. Damn. I know. Let's see. From where? Oh. I mean.

8:17This line was different. It's nice though.

8:27That's so sweet. Yeah. Yeah. And then after that, it kind of just like sat in my notes until we were ready to record. And then we made a demo like really early on of just something that we knew we were going to replace because we had a vision. Right. We had a vision for the song. Do you want to talk about our vision? Well, the first time Lizzie played it for

8:58me, I'm a sucker immediately. Lizzie's always like, I have a new song. And I'll be like, whatever. You know, respectfully. Just like there's so much going on. And like, I know it's going to be really good. I know I'm going to be blown away. I'm tired of myself more than I'm tired of the song. So I remember the first time hearing it and being like, just the story, how simple the story is, but how much it's saying felt in line with what was going on in the piano. Just that kind of monotonous, that one note. And there was a feeling there.

9:32And right after she had played it for me, I was like, this would be so cool just with an army of pianos. Like, let's just keep this all piano, but like, we'll get a big piano and a small piano, a little tiny upright. Yeah. You know, all these, just imagine several pianos and keep the song. How much, how big can we make it? How small can we make it? But all instead of this, our usual world of instruments and our library of sounds, like what can we do with just a bunch of pianos in a room? And circumstances very much outside of our control,

10:09like led us to having the studio hop throughout the whole record. And when we had ended up at Henson, which is now not Henson, it's Chaplin. Chaplin. We had the opportunity. We had one very tiny piano that Taylor commandeered from a friend. The mini piano. Go through all the pianos. They're really fun to listen to. The Goldbrinson Pinafore mini piano. Very tiny. Yeah. Let's soundtrack this with the pianos. I remember. Which one did we did? We did yours first, right? I was on the tiny one with tissue in it. Yeah. You were on the mini piano,

10:40the Pinafore. You were on the Steinway upright. The upright. And I was on a grand. A grand.

10:49Mason's first phrase, first time he heard it was piano symphony. I remember writing that down in my notebook. I was like, that's a beautiful phrase. This one's got some Pan Man on it. Mm-hmm. So cool. You put some, like, Kleenex or, like, right? Yeah, for mine, it comes in. That one is coming in. That's my upright, yeah. That's Lizzy. So Lizzy's playing the melody. Is that the grand in

11:27that small room? That's the upright. It's the upright. It's the upright. It's the Steinway. The main part.

11:33What's that one? That might, what does, like, an extra one, it looks like. I think some of them got kind of split up and re-labeled. This is. Ah. Yeah, there we go. Percussion. This is Mace. That's the tiny piano, and I wedged a bunch of tissue between the hammers, so it gave it this, like, almost percussive, like, shaker thing. Like, treading through snow or something. But it's cool because notes still kind of poke through. But you get all the body of the piano, you know? Yeah. Yeah,

12:05that piano's a special one. Some weird EQ happening. Let's go. What's the one below it? Carved out. Yeah. Yeah. VB2 piano.

12:19Just little notes here and there. There's nothing going on there. We just kind of, like, went for it. Wait, why is it so bendy? The VB2. Sick. It's awesome. Put them all together, maybe? And we have the big grand piano hit. Remy played that? Remy Moret? This is just whacking the grand piano. Just hitting the piano. The outside of the piano. Yeah. Yeah. But with the sustain pedal held

12:52down. Wow. Can we hear that again? That's insane. Yeah, you could hear all of the, uh... Devil walk putting another one, I think. So cool. The sustain of it is bizarre. It's wild. Amazing. Yeah. But it's storytelling because Lizzie wrote this on a piano at home. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. It just sounds like the end of the world. Wow. It's so cinematic. Hans Zimmer is going to lift that.

13:27Like, lyrically, Lizzie's dreaming of, uh, you know, like, how big and small life is in a little moment. And so I kind of feel like this is, like, the piano's dream of how big and small it can be. You know, it's like, it's just a piano in your little living room. But in the piano's dream, it's so much more. And, like, this little note that it's playing is, like, it's hearing is, like, no, but it's actually this grand thing. So full breath. That's something we talk about a lot. Yeah. It's, like, the dream that the song has. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Songs have dreams. Very poetic.

13:59The song inside the song. Mm-hmm. Spiritually correct. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I mean, and, and there's even, like, strings or what sounds like strings that start to happen, but those are made out of pianos. Yeah. The theme is pianos. Those are fun, too. A little brush action. Yeah. Yeah. Our strings are down here, I think.

14:23So, what is that? I think that was. Like, strings, probably. Like, that was, uh, a single note that if you chop the front and back off of and then just basically loop through verb and etc., it becomes, we can make a string sound out of it. Ace tone. Is that ace tone? No, this all says string synth. Oh, we actually. But no, some of this is, those are actually the strings. Yeah. Oh, because we had a quartet. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so you did bring in. So, there are a couple strings. Later, yeah.

14:58But very subtle. And they do some plucking things, too. Pluck. Yeah, I think the. Pizzicato. The pits is.

15:09Wow, that's beautiful. Never heard that. It's tucked. A lot of, I mean, there's a lot of stuff in here that's just kind of.

15:20Yeah. Whoa.

15:24The dream, the song dreams. That's so sick. Shout out to the weaver. Tony from Soundgas made me buy that, and that was the correct move.

15:36The collider loop. Yep.

15:40Bunch of reverse stuff. Very magical mystery tour.

15:47That's sick. Can we, can we hear the grand? Yeah. Because it, there is the crescendo moment in the song. Yeah, the big, the big climax, which never really, every mix we were getting back, I was like, it's not big enough. And I feel like we finally got it to a place that feels like a good payoff.

16:13That's the most tailored line of all time. We did that in there. Yeah. And then the ace, ace tone. And I had to do that on the synth bass too.

16:25Ace tone is just like so, I feel like we should just talk about that in general. Yeah, it deserves its flowers. Yeah. This rec, this record as a whole, it's like such a main character. We, we put it on pretty much every song. Kind of the glue.

16:48And what exactly is it? So I feel like each record, there's a couple main characters sonically. On the last one, the bass six was really essential. And obviously Taylor's piano. The ace tone for this record, it's, it's an old Japanese combo organ.

17:15It was like a pre-Roland era before Roland was Roland. And the, the ace tone is the top, it's the one everyone wants, the top five. And for some, I mean, we have a bunch of different combo organs that we, we, that, you know, each one does a cool thing. For some reason, the ace tone on this record kept presenting itself as an essential part of the, the world building. It's like really glues everything together. We're like missing, we're like, we're hearing a song, it's missing something. Let's add ace tone to it. And it like usually fixes the

17:46problem. That's how the record starts too. Yeah. Light in the first thing you hear is the ace tone, but the thing we did with it that I think helps give it, it's the space that it occupies on this record. Cause it's otherwise just, it's, it's just a very good sounding combo organ. But outside of that, I don't want to say it's not special. What's cool about it is how it's not special. What I think made it more unique on this record is we don't really have a lot of synths. If there are synths, it's probably the thumb jam app on my phone, but the ace tone we ran through this old, this

18:20is it an Aria or an Aria? Aria. The Aria. It's this digital delay I got from a buddy and it's the 80-100. It's mono in and stereo out. And the stereo effect is very subtle. So we take the ace tone, start it as mono, run it through the Aria. So it comes out stereo. And there's just the slightest amount of a stereo pitch bin that we try to set as slow and as subtle as possible. So there's just a little bit of movement that like, as soon as it's there, you take

18:51it away. Like the, it's like going back to black and white. You don't want to go back. Especially with organs, like are always like my, like they're kind of a part of a system like with a room. And this is like a, just like it has like a little mono jack out. So it just kind of sounds like it needs to be in like a fixed space or like artificial space to feel like. It needs to breathe. Yeah. We need to hear it again. I think now. Yeah. You'll definitely hear it now, the movement. If it's not VB2, it's anything we

19:23can do. Every, every track, every instrument needs, I'm always sneaking movement onto it. Just one side of it in mono.

19:33And then that's both sides panned out. Do you get the wobble? So cool. But it does the trick of, of implying synth or it's, it makes you go, what kind of synth is that? Like, what are you, and it's anything we can do to create question marks, like unanswerable questions sonically. So that it's like, is that a synth? Is that a guitar? Anything that

20:06makes you have to ask. That's a, that's a unique, that, that now creates a, a, not uncomfortable, but an unfamiliar space. And I feel like this record is really embracing unfamiliar spaces, especially on like strange ways and some of our other songs, really sonically trying to make you ask questions that aren't really answers to. So instruments that almost sound like something, something that almost sounds like a banjo, but it's actually like this weird fretless thing Georgie got from behind his fridge, you know, what stage does this affect

20:40the songwriting? I would say with Peach, the song is ready. It's just a matter of recording it and finding the right way to record it and finding those elements that we're hearing at the moment. Yeah. It's, I bring all the songs, most of them, like 99% of the songs I will have written already. And, and then I'll bring them in and we'll produce them out. But sometimes like I'll bring a song in and it's not quite done and we finish it together, but that, it happens more often that they're already finished by the time I bring them in.

21:10And we're talking about these sounds and we're hearing these sounds and especially when we hear them individually, they sound, they sound big. And when you're actually listening to the record and listening to the song in the context of the record, it's a very intimate song. And it has that one moment where there's a kind of crescendo, but then the rest of the song carries on after that. And that's almost like a moment of revelation as you cut the peach. It's like, oh, this is as good as anything else, you know, living in the moment. Yeah. But at the same time, the whole song remains very intimate. Yeah. We are in the room with you, Lizzie, playing the piano and, and all those, we don't know

21:44about the depth of this piano magic that you've got on there. No, which is really interesting. But it does, I mean, I had a few question marks saying, what is that that I'm listening to? You know, is that a violin? You know, what's creating all those different sounds? But it, but it, but that's a particular art to be that subtle, while at the same time, involving a grand, a stand up Steinway, you know, all these different things. No, that, yeah, I don't know that getting that

22:15balance right. Was that easy? It kind of like happened very quickly. It was very much like we were just all excited about it. And we just sat down and we did it. We, um, we did takes like all together. So at the end, I'm playing a line over Taylor's grand piano. We're like playing together, which it just like all felt like it happened pretty naturally. I think there's a ratio of intent and a ratio of like letting what happened continue to exist

22:47in the recording in, in such a way as like, there's a thing in kind of the first chorus that we fell in love with that sounds like a snap or something in the distance. And it's just, it's, it's a piano creak. It's not, it's not intentional. Or it might even be my, the C, my, my concept. Is it? And sync. Whatever. It's just, it's, it's, it's definitely my C, but there's like a, there's like a, coming off of all the textures.

23:18Yeah. Solo my vocal. I'm pretty sure it's mine. I think it's just. And sync. Oh my God. I can't believe that's your mouth. It's me. The whole time. There's any, any mo, and there's a lot of those in every song. And especially in this one moments that give you hints at the space that you're in, you know, obviously we weren't in Lizzie's actual living room, but the space that is implied in the, in the storytelling and in the song, like a big part of, for me of capturing what Lizzie does is it's really

23:50making you feel like you're there with her. And so leaving a lot of the, the real world happenings and the mistakes and the sounds of like a sustained pedal or a squeak here or combining that with the other worldly, not physical, not real things keeps that kind of dream alive. Yeah. There's, there's a moment when the grand enters where you can hear the like pedal or something like, like creaking. Yeah. You hear the sustain of the grand. And, and I think we were like, should we take it out? And, but it's like the coolest

24:22moment. It's so sick. Is it the top of the bridge? I think now that there's a word that are kind of haloing the main piano. I like this chord change to it. It was all Lizzie.

24:36Yeah. Sneaky whirly. And then here's the Stein or the grand coming in.

24:43Like, it sounds like a symbol or something. Oh, it's so good. So we're recording so quiet for a lot of this stuff and trying to let all the details come up, you know, and all playing together. Yeah. Yeah. So all those different pianos all playing at once. The one with the tissues. Most of them. Yeah. Well, there's a core of us playing together and then like, okay, that was good. Now let's do a pass. Like Taylor and I now just doubling the ding, ding, ding. Single moves. Yeah. And like letting some fade out every once in a while, go up a whole, like, so it's not

25:19a perfect double, but it enhances or builds upon the core recording of us doing it together. Yeah. And the percussion hits of the body of the grand, that's done at the same time? I think that was after. That might've been after. Because Taylor was playing the piano and that would have been unfair to him. That's like for the big boomy one.

25:50The grand casa? It's like Sam's like in there, like holding the sustain pedal. Yeah. Sam, our best friend, assistant slash engineer. He went in there to help. What did you, oh, I can't ask you, but can you, can you sign language to us?

26:05Oh, cool. He's held the sustain pedal. And then Remy hit it. That was right. At the same time. And then where are you putting the microphones for that? There were so many microphones on so many instruments, on so many songs and versions of songs. It's anyone's guess. But for, we tried to just mic stuff like pretty literally. Um, I think on the grand big piano, we had like 67s kind of in it, like pretty low on top of it that me and Sam had placed. And then on the upright, we were at Henson, which, uh, has so many microphones.

26:37We had C12s on it, which was really cool. So sick. And then on Mason's little tiny butterfly piano, we had like KM84s. Yeah. Just trying to use the old stuff, but usually just like, you know, kind of like ORTF or whatever, like ear length apart, just kind of like where you think, you know, it sounds good. Just kind of find a spot and listen. And then a lot of these pianos, like we weren't exactly sure how they were all going to fit together. You know, trying to make like kind of like an orchestra, like trying to get everyone together. So they got like filtered and like shaped and like EQ'd like pretty aggressively to make everything work.

27:12So we're just kind of running and gunning with the mics, to be honest. Yeah. But they're all doing different things. Yeah. That's what's interesting. It's not like a Glenn Branca guitar orchestra where they're all kind of playing the same kind of note at the same time and building and building. It's a different kind of wall of sound. It's not because each one is bringing a tiny, subtle element. Each one excels at a thing. To me, Lizzie being at the upright felt the most like she's the main melody and that's the most. Well, it's also because I could only play the beginning part.

27:43And then once Taylor came in, I hadn't, I didn't write that part on the piano, so I didn't know how to play it. I was like, you got to play that, unfortunately. So I kind of stopped at that moment. It was a baton. Yeah. And then I came back in at the end and it was, yeah, it was cool. It was like improv. Well, there's the part at the, oh, go ahead. No, I was thinking about another thing that you said, but go. No, I want to know what you were going to say. I just love it because I was like, man, we should bring in some like really sleek bassist to play. But Macy goes, man, it's such a you part. You should play the bass part. So I played like a key bass, like a mini mode.

28:13Getting Taylor on key bass on any song is a joy. It's kind of my greatest joy. I'm so happy I have a video of him just loving it. So much joy. There's no greater joy, I think, than playing key bass, especially for your own part. But anyways, so the left hand of the grand and the key bass really lock up. And like, I like that relationship. It's like these parts are really specific and composed, but how they work together. It's kind of like just like a drop shadow on the piano. It's like super subtle.

28:45And it's going to be like automated up and moving around to build the section up.

29:03That was the last one. Yeah. Needed to get that in there. We, what's, because we had some amazing bass players on this record. So many. And we really utilized them in the worst ways possible. Like, Pino should have been playing on this. But we put Pino on the ballads. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Bob Glob. Preach. Sebastian Steinberg. Yeah. Did Sean play on anything? Sean Hurley? Uh, not for the main record. An early. Kave. Kave Rastegar. So we had bass players.

29:35Gabe Noel. But on this song, it was like, it's gotta be Taylor.

29:41And it's also, you're, you're keeping everything in the piano world for this song. So you've got a range of sounds, but they're all created by that one. Yeah. There's literally no guitars on the song. So cool. It's vocals, keys, and like weird string stuff. And we should, and then to me, the, the thing that wraps up the song and would also help wrap up where we're at storytelling wise is, is when the dream ends. Oh, that note? The note. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a moment at the outro where it's big still or bigger.

30:13And then there's this one note that I think you played. You played it and it felt like a, like school bell ringing and just. And everything drops out. I was like, everything should cut out there. It makes it smaller. Felt like a big scene change. Our snaps, Lizzie hated the snaps. They're so buried. She went to the bathroom and came back and saw Taylor and I like. Snap army. And she just came back in the talkback like, what are you guys doing? Like, I promise if you have. But you know, they do, they do have their place. I mean, come on.

30:44You need it. You need it. It sounds amazing. Isn't that like the, the blue? Should we go to that moment? Let's go to the, let's just play the, can we play the outro from the big crescendo where we put every reverb in the world on Lizzie's last note. And then you'll hear that when the piano snaps out of its dream and we go and we're sucked back into reality just in Lizzie's tiny dining room. Everything was smaller, now I'm seeing it grow. And I'm cutting a peach in my kitchen while you're playing a show.

31:21Yeah, I'm playing the upright. So the dream is still big and the dream is still alive.

31:53Here comes your bell.

32:03New harmony exiting the dream. Cross rhythm, queen.

32:20Oh, so beautiful.

32:24Yeah. I mean, also on my vocal, we started at the top of the song with no reverb. And from the bridge to the, that last note, we just like slowly brought a reverb up so that it like starts super intimate and close. And then by the, that note, it's like opened up. Yeah. There's a lot of crazy reverb moves that, that Will did on the mix. Will McClellan are. A lot of like hardware rides with the chase bliss thing. Do you know which reverb that is or you, you don't, I can't tell you, man.

33:03No, it's a mystery. It's vintage verb apparently. Yeah. But most of the throws and the dubs are the, the chase bliss. The chase bliss CMX. Yeah. The white box. That big white one. That's sick. But there, there's all sorts of weird, sneaky, like dubbed. Whoa.

33:22This is a UA thing that we don't have right now, but. Classic. Yeah. I mean, for a lot of effects on this record, we are doing like a verb into a delay, like into another verb. And then like with like something on that and like kind of trying to get like weird kind of squishy effects.

33:43Amazing.

33:58Yeah. It's amazing when you're listening to the record and the level of detail that has gone into this really intimate song where you just feel like you're playing the piano, thinking about cutting peaches and talking to us. That's the goal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of work to make it look like not much work. Yeah. Totally. And performing it live, will you have a few pianos playing with each other? That's what we, stay tuned. That would be a nice moment in the show, wouldn't it? Because that's, we've got to figure it out. I'm sure right now.

34:28Steinway sponsorship, thank you. Please, please Steinway if you're watching. Yeah. That's a, that's a question mark right now, but I'm sure we're going to figure out a way to play it that's, that will be adequate. I'm going to need a Kleenex sponsor. Yeah. Oh my God. We can get you that. Thank you. Could we have one more blast of everything together so we can hear the conclusion of the song? Yeah. Let's play the mix. Steinway. I'm cutting a peach in my kitchen while you're playing a show. Oh, oh.

35:02Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Thank you.

35:36Thank you.

36:07Was the peach nice? It was great. I love peaches. Because you know what it's like, you know, you cut up with a peach. It's not quite ripe enough. I'm pretty sure I have a memory of that one being perfect. Fantastic. Good enough to write a song about. Exactly.

36:20Glad to hear that. Right.

Writing Two Elevens

36:21We're going to take a quick break. And the next song we're going to look at is Two Elevens. The next song we're going to look at from Angel by Liza McAlpine is Two Elevens. And Omar is going to play the master. Omar. Maro Maro. They called you first when the window opened See your name in my hand again

36:57He told me last that the vow was broken See your face in the sand and then I remember you in my house Sat on the couch and you held my face Don't remember how it feels to kiss you But I know the taste

37:31It is Two Elevens by Liza McAlpine from Angel and one of the great joys of recording tape notes is watching the musicians so they listen to their music and there's a lot of air playing while that was running. I was on Vibes just now. What were you playing? I was playing, well I was doing a little bit of live dubbing with the tape echo on the line six pedal

38:04That's kind of good. And I was doing another Belzuki, had a little Belzuki moment in there. It's a subtle Belzuki but it is in there. Uh-huh. Nice. Nice. I love that song so much. Should we do the next song?

38:17Thorough. So tell us how Two Elevens started then, Lizzie. This was one of the last, I think it might have been the second to last, the penultimate song that I wrote for the album. She said it. She said it. Come on. And I wrote this when I was in New York doing like a theater thing in November. On Broadway. No, this wasn't Broadway, this was after Broadway. Oh, cut that. It was Broadway. This was a post-Broadway thing that I was in New York in November of last year and I was in rehearsal one day and my phone was on silent and I, you know,

38:49rehearsed for a couple hours and then I took a break and I looked at my phone and I saw that my, like, alarm was going off at my house and then I had a text from my ex-boyfriend and I was like, what's going on? So I looked at his text and he was like, hey, like, just, are you, is everything okay? Like, the alarm went off and they called me because I guess his, his, a number was still like in the alarm company and I was like, oh my God, that's so embarrassing. Um, I was like, yeah, don't worry. Like, everything's fine. Um, and it was just like, I have old windows in my house, so they just opened.

39:21It was really windy. It opened and nothing was wrong. And then that kind of like inspired this, this song. Um, and yeah, that's the first, the first verse is like talking about, they, they called you first when the window opened. Right. See your name in my hand again, seeing his name on my phone. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I just like kind of, then I was just lost in memory land and I want, I really wanted this song to feel like a memory because it felt like it was a lot about like reflecting on that relationship. It had been, it had been a long time since we had broken up and we hadn't spoken in forever.

39:56And so I was like reflecting a lot on it and the choruses are like, I remember this and this and this and this. And it's kind of about like recognizing how much I had grown since we'd broken up and all this stuff. And yeah, I, I wrote a first attempt at this song while I was in New York, which I actually really like. It doesn't sound really anything like what ended up, what I ended up writing, but I, I really love it. I just felt like the lyrics were a little too on the nose, but do you want to play it? I heard from someone, you're not still with her, when the alarm went off, they called you first.

40:40Is everything okay, weird to see your face on my phone?

40:50Last time I saw you, you said that maybe this doesn't have to be it, does it baby? I love that part. Don't give me hope like that, don't do that, we won't. That's it. I, and I, and I never finished it. And I was like, that's not good enough. And then I, and I pivoted to what ended up happening, but I just felt like the lyrics were a little too literal. Yeah. Like when the alarm went off, they called you first.

41:22I really wanted it to, to be like, what is she talking about? What could she be talking about? I want, I, I feel like that's a theme with this album. It's like, I really wanted to write in, in less specific terms so that it honestly wasn't really a conscious choice. It was just kind of like, that's the type of writing that I was being drawn to at the time is the type of music that I was listening to was more like, I was listening to a lot of Joanie, a lot of Nick Drake. Like it's, it's more like mercurial and like less specific.

41:53And I really wanted it to feel that way. So I was like, that lyric is a little too on the nose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How many times do you do that? You know, record that kind of a demo and then move on to another one. Do it. I mean, is that multiple? Not often, but sometimes a song will come out a little sideways at first and I will be like, that is not the final thing. Like, I know that's not the finished product yet. I know that there's, it's still inside of me. It needs to be said in a different way. I haven't said it in the final form yet.

42:23So that was too on the nose. You needed to rewrite then. So then did you do another demo with a rewritten? Yeah, I think the second thing there, I was kind of finding it. We don't have to listen to the whole thing. It's kind of probably very long. It's eight minutes.

42:45Different phrasing.

42:53I'm like finding it. This one happened pretty fast though. And then I think I ended up writing the whole thing and then I was, there was no ending verse, I don't think. I also didn't have a title for it. Like the third thing is called I'm Sorry. I was like going to call it that because it's kind of a callback to the I'm Sorry's in Ugly Things.

43:25They're about the same person. And then eventually I wrote the third verse and the title Two Eleven's came. And what does Two Eleven's mean? It's, it was our anniversary was on November 11th, 1111. And he gave me a necklace for our first anniversary and I, I still have it. I wear it sometimes. It's really cute. And also it's like, I don't like to throw away things that are like meaningful to me, even if it's not, you know, what's happening in the present moment.

43:57It's like, I just, I'm very nostalgic and I like to remember things that were good. And so, yeah, the third verse is about I wear the necklace with the two elevens, that something, something with Lyricus. But yeah, it's, it's about that necklace. And what's crazy, we found out a double meaning. Oh, yeah. Like police have a code for a, like a house robbery or a robbery and it's, the code is 211. Which is crazy because my alarm was going off and I was like, is someone breaking into my house right now?

44:28It's just that it's, it was very like universe was like, yeah, this is. My dad's, my grandpa was a detective. Oh, the cross-dressing. Yes, that, that one. You would dress up as women to like take down guys that were like trying to steal from women. Wow. That's pretty cool. Very detective. Cleveland. All right. Anyway. Yeah. That's how that song, should we open it up?

Recording Two Elevens

44:49Yeah. Yeah.

Recording Two Elevens

44:50And then, so how do you then capture this? Because one of the interesting qualities about the song is that it's quite hushed. It's, it's again, quite personal. And how do you maintain that, that atmosphere? Well, this one was tough because we, it was a later song that I brought in, like later in the process. And I think we were kind of like, we didn't really know where to go with this one at first. Started with hand bone. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we did the guitar and the vocal. And then we were like, I think it needs to be a little faster.

45:20It was feeling a little slow. So we sped up the guitar just by like a couple BPM and the vocal then sped up with it. So it was sounding a little strange, but I was like, well, I'll just redo it later. I'm like, it's fine. And then we added stuff. We, we added hand bone, which was just nice and clear and Libro, our bass player. Like Libra Menta. Just tapping on their chests in front of mics. That's a move you do when you don't know what to do yet. So you're like, we also like, we really didn't want to, because the guitar part has a feel that could be interpreted like kind of like bossa, bossa nova-esque.

45:57Like kind of like, we could have leaned into that. But I wanted to stay away from that because it felt like, again, too on the nose and like not really our vibe. We couldn't get away with that. No, definitely not. No. Do you want to, should we play the hand bone? Yeah. Hand bonus.

46:17Yeah. Vintage denim. I can hear it, man. I can hear it. Honestly. It just, that kind of like, this started the vibe that we got from the song. The percussion. And then, I mean, Abe's percussion that he added was so important. Abe Rounds. Abe Rounds.

46:37I mean, we have to talk about the wood block. We're going to talk about the woodpecker. It's time to talk about the woodpecker. The pileated woodpecker. Come on, man. It's just so good. It's like to play that too. We should listen to it in context. But to play that really in pocket is really hard to do. To make that not sound ridiculous and actually swaggy. But Abe Rounds is Abe Rounds for that reason, man. That's why you call Abe. So is that, that hand bone stuff, does that make it to the final mix? Oh, yeah. So that's all in there, right?

47:08We did the hand bone after we did the guitar and like. We had guitar vocal and we were like, how do we build this out? And then we were like, let's just start with percussion. We should talk about the guitar too. Yeah. So maybe, yeah, let's hear the guitar and vocal. And then that led to the hand bone. Yeah. The vocal also. And it's actually two guitars. Yeah. The guitars, because they were all kind of got very sped. And we did a bunch of different mics on the guitars. And we did the DI, especially with the nylon. A theme throughout this whole record.

47:38I mean, who knows if it's there. Yeah. There's no DI on this one. What? With the nylon? No, brother. We didn't do it? No. Just mics. We definitely did it. All right. We definitely did it. We did it. We did it. We can't hear the guitars separately? No, you can. I think we can. I was going to talk about our secret VB2 comp torsion. That is on the next song, my friend. Okay. I'll talk about it then. This is an array of mics. I mean, we did two. We just, you know, double tracked the guitars and hard panned them.

48:09But it's one steel string and one nylon string. It's two steel strings, hard pan. All right. I'll go wait in the car. The nylon. And you tell me how we made the record. You can rock the computer if you want. No, Mason doesn't know how to work computers. I can't work a computer.

48:27I mean, yeah, the main guitar sound is an old 47 or 48. And that's Lizzie playing, obviously. It's like a kind of lo-fi. My girl. Love the changes. It's my favorite guitar.

48:42And then a mic that was breaking.

48:47That's just barely in there for a little bit of vibe. That's so cool. I was like, let's just roll it anyways. Because it was working. Which mic was the broken one? This is the KM56 before it got tacked. We're also recording so quietly. Well, I play quietly. Lizzie is the quietest guitar player ever. But it's my vibe. That's my vibe. And it works, you know? And then we ended up, you know, we doubled that. And then Will and Mix bust the guitars to a stereo print.

49:17God, they sound so good. Just double-tracked, hard-panned.

49:25Dry. It's just so good. I love this. This is, like, literally the first guitar pass you put down. Yeah. It happened pretty quickly. She just did it in, like, and, like, a lot of the times, like, recording Lizzie songs, it's, like, they're these long, just, like, special chord progressions. And then we put the vocal on as kind of, like, a guide afterwards. So we're just, you know, rolling. And if we have to, like, stop at any point, it's like, okay, wait, where do we pick that up again? Literally, where are we at? Counting the bars and there's, like, a cut bar.

49:55Because this song is, like, the same chord progression. There are sections, but it's hard to tell without a vocal. So a lot of times we get lost. I want to talk about the vocal. Can we talk about the vocal? Because I feel like this vocal was a happy accident. Because we sped up the guitar. And so the vocal sped up with it. I was like, we'll just, you know, retrack it later, which never happens. It never happens. I feel like every time we put a scratch vocal down, we're like, yeah, we'll get a real vocal later.

50:26Like, it's fine. And then we try to get a real vocal and it never works. And we always end up using the scratch vocal. That happened on pretty much every song on this record. And that's what happened with this. We were, like, the vocal sounded a little strange since it had been sped up. And then I don't remember whose idea it was to put autotune on it. It might have been Libro's. I feel like Libro was there and he was like, what have you just, like, listen to me as a joke. My recollection of the autotune story is, you know, when you're in the studio, we were in the studio for a lot of days. Too long.

50:56No windows. And morale, you know, wavers. You need anything to lift the spirit. There was a time before we had made this song where someone had the idea. I don't honestly remember who. As a joke, like, you know, Lizzie was on the mic in the live room, like, trying to get a take on a tough tune. And we were just kind of going for it. And at a certain point to lift morale, I was like, I'm going to put, like, T-Pain autotune on Lizzie's vocal. Brilliant. Brilliant. You know, in between takes to try to get her to laugh, you know, because it was risky because we didn't know how Lizzie was going to take it.

51:30We didn't know what was going to happen. But it was so fun. And then you loved it. I loved it. I was having so much fun. So whenever, like, things would get tense, I would just like, we're going to hard tune her vocal right now. And so we did that on this. And at first it was like, oh, ha ha, like, that's so funny. But then I was like, oh, wait, it's kind of really cool. And then we turned the retune speed down so that it didn't sound like crazy, crazy autotune. Yeah. But we, it's definitely on there.

52:01And I let, I think, like, it's interesting because I wanted the song to feel like a memory. And I feel like when you're thinking about a past relationship or something like that and you tend to, like, romanticize the memories that you have and you only remember the good things. And I like that the autotune is, like, kind of, it's making it sound, like, more perfected. And, you know, I never, I've never used autotune. We melodyne things sometimes, but we've never put, like, tune on my vocal.

52:33And so it just, it feels like it makes sense with the, with the song. Well, we've got to hear it. Yeah.

52:42You can kind of hear it, like, sometimes. It's very subtle. But you're saying when you initially did it, it was, like, full team playing. Yeah. When we originally did it, it was.

52:58But we ended up automating the retune a little bit just for certain words that it was kind of catching too much. And then kind of to go with, like, the, the whole thing feels like a memory. It's, like, there's, like, the perfection of the tune. And then there's kind of this, like, suite of, like, weird, like, bit crushy, like, flangey, like, kind of wet, like, chorus effects that we ended up, like, putting on the vocal to kind of, like, balance that scale out a little bit.

53:30So it's kind of, like, Lizzie's, like, singing, like, perfectly in, like, a memory, like, the way you kind of remember stuff, but also, like, through Skype. Like, like, and your internet's, like, getting cut. Yeah. And then there's also all this, like, other, like, flangey weird stuff. Would you be able to build those up, Omar? Yeah. Yeah. Build them up. I mean. Build them up. It's interesting because, I mean, I had written down, when I was listening to the song, thinking about it, you know, how much, you know, you think about how the music should reflect both the lyrics and the feel and what you're trying to create.

54:01You know, and clearly, it's very important. Yeah. Because you're, you know, creating a whole sound world that embodies the mood and the feel and the meaning. Yeah, Lizzie's, there's no, nothing in the studio, more than any artist I've, I would say I've worked with. Like, there's no, like, oh, that's just cool. Like, let's just do that. Like, everything has to be deeply intentional and deeply, like, based on the story. Lizzie will not let us have any fun.

54:34Unless. Unless. All for the story. Yeah. Honor the story at all times. Yeah. Trying to abbreviate that? No, there's another tour thing. Oh, okay. Don't. Should we. Don't think the artist. Let's be the vocal. Yeah, I mean, this is apparently the vocal, you know, as it started.

54:52I think it's, like, elastic audioed a little bit.

54:58And then we kind of did our auto-tune.

55:04And then we baked it a little bit more with this Good Hurts Lossie plug-in. Shout out Good Hurts. Shout out Good Hurts. I remember you in my house. You know, just to kind of give it a little edge. Sat on the couch and you held my face. There's a flanger. Don't remember. That's cool. How it feels to kiss you. But. Then we have an EMT 250. I remember you in my house.

55:38Sat on the couch and you held my face. Just kind of, like, a weird, just, you know, pretty quiet in the mix. Like, a dry, like, doubler kind of thing. But that with the flanger and all the bit crush, you know.

55:53Kind of starts to. Sounds so sick. And it's so different. Like, this is. This song feels, like, new for us, for me. It's, like, this was an experiment. This was just, like, we were just having fun and making something that was just fun. If we had started this song earlier in the recording process of this record, it would not have sounded like this. Which is cool. Which we talked about. Like, can we talk about the harmony? I was going to say, if we're going to talk about, like, the vocoding. Because I really love these harmonies. I went pretty hard.

56:24I kept, like, adding them and then being like, okay, that's enough. And then I would hear something else. Like, wait, let me get back in there. And then I did that a couple times. I just kept adding. Adding stuff. Let's keep some of this going as we listen so we can hear it. Can you solo, like, the lead with all the harmonies?

56:56The moments that you choose to double are always really interesting to me. What I said I'd do All those thoughts. The responses. Yeah. I'm being honest You were doing what you had to I remember you in summers Linen sheets and taking off our clothes God lives I took the picture

57:27I still look at Just to feel what I know There was love once There was fire We had something And in terms of thinking about the harmonies Is this just an instinctive reaction?

57:58Yeah, it's just, like, what feels like it is meant to be there These are my favorite These responses I had fun with these Best one Shout out older I've been transcribing those

58:31To play those live You know, I'm like, you can't let that moment go by without playing those So that's actually very helpful for me to hear I love harmonies And these, I was having fun with them Because I would just get on the mic and have the auto-tune on And then just, like, he's singing Yeah, this is the only time we ever recorded with the auto-tune on Yeah Right Okay, that's pretty much it So cool But it's interesting that it's not necessarily to do with the storytelling Even though that's the main drive behind each song But now you're thinking about beauty And thinking about the magic of sound

59:02And how to augment that in an entertaining but also fulfilling way Totally, totally It's beautiful Yeah, we're lucky to work with an artist Where, like, auto-tune gets to be, like A fun treat Yeah Not, like, you know, expected or anything Yeah, it's just, it's like, oh, now this is a tool You know, it's an effect Sweet treat Yeah, sweet treat It's fun to watch Lizzie, like, go in And try and, like, find the perfect harmony

59:32And we're just, like, sitting back on the couch And she's, like, in a boxing match with herself And she's, like, no, no, I can do better, man And then finally, like, damn, that was good She's, like, is that good? And we're, like, yeah We're, like, yeah It's good It's all good It's so funny Great, great part of the process Is there anything else we want to highlight here? I mean, there's so much The optagon I would love to talk about the optagon And just the weird, uh I love how you treated the vibraphone You had a vision about the treating of the vibraphone Those, like That's all Omar Those six going up and, like, reversing it

1:00:03And then sending that in before the attack So hip Yeah, there's, like, a reverse verb on the vibes Which I feel like we were kind of trying to There was a little bit of the whole, like, memory Maybe it's kind of on the nose But I started thinking about, like, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind And we were, like Definitely gives that vibe Mason has messed with optagon, like, a lot before And I'm also obsessed with optagon And there was one at the studio That wasn't yours, right? That was the one that was there That was Bex Yeah, that one was Bex Mine is still covered in ash

1:00:35Right Right Shame Yeah, it'll We'll get it back out Should we find it? Yeah And when you play an optagon Like, you don't play it like a keyboard Like, you play it like you're playing, like, a lawnmower or something Yeah, it's Like, honest to God It's a battle to get it to do anything musical They're not supposed to exist to 2026 It's kind of just, like, luck It's, like, chance It's chance If you just get it or not There's tech, though There is a tech Mason knows how to get it to Yeah, let's hear it It's so crazy

1:01:09Yeah, it just sounds like you're in, like, a David Lynch movie or something So sick So crazy It's definitely giving Eternal Sunshine Sick score Very John Bryan Yeah, and it's, like, you know, when you listen to it on its own It's, like, playing, like, a loop in, like, a key at a tempo But when it's, like, in the song It's just this, like, weird, like, kind of, like, fiery crackle Yeah, classic flip the disc upside down so it's reversed Oh

1:01:39So good Yeah, like, the trail 11 I remember you were like, I know what I want to do to that vibraphone I mean, everyone's So that's reversed vibraphone Yeah So you recorded it It's, the reverb return is reversed Oh, wow I used to work at a studio where we'd work on tape a lot And you could do a thing where you would, like, you know, most people, like, on tape Like, you don't print your reverb to tape

1:02:11Unless you print, like, your, like, committed, like, blended signal Like, on the thing Like, you print, like, kind of, like, if you record a guitar through an amp And, like, your reverb's on the amp Like, you commit to that reverb blend So you put, you know, you don't commit your reverb to tape Because you only have 24 tracks or whatever So you do all your reverbs, like, as you're mixing down to two track But someone taught me that if you printed reverb You could print reverb to tape And, like, do this cool thing where you could print it in, like, backwards So you, like, literally, you know, take your source or whatever

1:02:42And, like, make two new tracks on the tape machine Flip the tape upside down Or, like, flip the tape machine into reverse And then you play your reverb in So you're printing your reverb to the tape, like, but backwards That's so cool And then when you put, you know, the tape back on You have the reverb kind of, like, rushing up to, like, the source every time And it's just, like, one of my favorite sounds And it's, like, oddly hard to do in digital Because wherever your, like, start and end point is If they're not the same They'll get, like, out of sync with each other So we went for that

1:03:14Yeah It's so cool It's also side-chained Which is what's giving it the kind of fluttery That's so cool Beautiful It's frustrating how all the coolest All the stuff that's so easy to do on tape

1:03:45That we love and learn to love Is so hard to do in Pro Tools Very speeding in Pro Tools Very hard Strange ways We really struggled with that Yeah On tape There's just a knob right there Gorgeous, dude So good Oh, I love this song so much This one really feels, like, special to me Piano comes in so late in the tunes I remember just doing a full pass of it all the way through I was like, man, we really want this section at the end to hit hard I was like, just hold off the piano until the very, very end of the song

1:04:16But that's a nice moment So good Can we talk about the, um, what is it? Whirly? The thing that I did? Yeah, that first pitch bend is amazing, too Oh, yeah, we gotta talk Yeah, we gotta talk about that The submarine Yes, the sonar It felt like it needed something in these moments So I just kind of Got on the whirly We found an insane sound I mean, it sounds so good And I think that the echo is

1:04:46Is that my line six? When we did that Yeah, that's just We did that on the way in We had to do that a couple times before we got it right So good That's the echo park on the line Yeah, line six echo park You could still get them for like a hundred bucks And like pound for pound Sorry verb Like still one of the greatest delay pedals And I use it on everything The sorry verb is something that we conceived on ugly things

1:05:24For that moment in the song where it's like I stacked a bunch of harmonies on the I'm sorry, I'm sorry And we I was like I really want it to feel like It's extending forever So we made this thing called sorry verb And then we used it on like so many other tracks Sorry verb is the main character on the record It is, yeah Sorry verb in A stone And what makes up the sorry verb then? What's in the ultimate? It's super massive Which is a Valhalla plugin Which is a super massive Like you can do It does like really long reverb times

1:05:56And super massive goes into a vintage verb Kind of cathedral thing That's probably maybe tweaked out in some way That's it? Just so they kind of You know when you throw Something that's already kind of like a Copied Like degraded version of the signal Like into a reverb It kind of helps like It's kind of like putting pre-delay on a reverb It kind of helps you separate Like the source from the reverb

1:06:27Kind of like doing the same thing to a reverb It's like if you already send something That's kind of like offset And like warbled into it It kind of just helps like smear everything together It makes a little bit more sense on vocals Like in the other tunes But actually I think these Yeah those definitely Sorry Just kind of sits in the back And goes for a long time Fades forever yeah Yeah Certain songs we like kept it even like slightly longer than that probably

1:07:01But So good Sorry Verbs on like probably like at least half the record is somewhere Sounds like you've invented a thing Every record you know You're just trying to like invent like a couple of things that you can rely on Like the Ace tone Yeah It was a big one Belzuki on this record Yeah your quiver Quiver of guitars like an archer Brilliant I'm thinking about the time So maybe have a blast of the whole thing at the end And then we'll move on to our next song

1:07:31Sounds good We have Libro on bass on this right Oh yeah Thank you Libro Such a mysterious bass player It is Yeah I remember You in some minutes Lending sheets and taking off our clothes Took the picture I still look at Just to feel what I know There was love once

1:08:05There was fire We had something Is the big piano coming? Yeah That's all that matters Oh And the Belzuki Blame you I don't blame me

1:08:38Blame me I am older This is your big piano moment Here My piano? I think yeah Yeah I'm always fighting for the low nose I call it first

1:09:14And the window opened Can't be better Cause I made my bed Cause I made my bed I wear the necklace With the 2-11's With the 2-11's Like a promise That I won't forget There was love once There was fire We had something

1:09:50That's all that matters Beautiful So good Fantastic So that's 2-11's by Lizzie McAlpine And we're making memories here Because I'm never going to lose that memory Of watching you all airplay along To that I can't hear that song again Without imagining that It's Same It's lovely It's brilliant We're going to take a quick break And the next song we're going to look at Is Our Strange Ways

Unpacking Our Strange Ways

1:10:20The next song we're going to look at Is Our Strange Ways From Angel But before we do that We have a question That links into When you were last here So Mason The last time we were here You said you hadn't heard The original ceiling And you were waiting to hear it After the tour That you were doing An older version of ceilings Right, right Did you eventually listen To the original And what was your reaction to this? I have still not listened

1:10:50To the original Right, okay So my I There's a I want him to listen To that whole album At some point I want to like Do a deep dive one day But that day has not come yet Right I saw a video Of a TikTok Where Someone was doing a cover Of it on guitar And that was the first time Where they were playing A song And it's like Oh I think that's ceilings I'm pretty sure Oh my god So that I'm starting to Know it I'm starting to know it When I hear it

1:11:21Before I was just like I do not know that song Wow So no I haven't heard it yet My fiance tried to One night We were like On the couch Watching some YouTubes And she was like Let's just do it Like I'm going to put it on And I like genuinely Got like upset Not like I was just like I don't think I can't I can't I can't do this yet I can't just hear it I can't I'm not ready So I don't know The moment has to be right It's the long con We will know We will know When the moment is right Ask me again On the next Episode

1:11:52We'll put that in our Notes Yeah And make sure We ask you again Okay yeah Please Interesting Interesting That was the best question Our Strange Ways Is the next song We're going to look at It's a bit of an epic In many ways I guess we should hear A blast of the master And Omar Can you do the honors From the top Somewhere in a great hall

1:12:24You play the piano I am over the sea And far away With my eyes on the target And I sing my songs for you Somewhere in a greyhound station I'm singing for change I don't know you in a crowd

1:12:58I couldn't pick out your face And I'm singing for a man Who did me wrong And nobody sings along I am free But lonely I have Nowhere to go No commitments No obligations And no soul A little taste of Our Strange Ways

1:13:30From Angel How did this one start then?

Writing Our Strange Ways

1:13:34I wrote this song on tour We were in Europe Where in Europe were we, Taylor? Oh He wasn't there Was it Oh God of course He was playing with Joni Yeah I want to say Germany So one of the dates Where you weren't there Maybe Cologne He just always remembers Exactly where Cologne Where we were Any story we tell Totally Yeah Except the ones That you're not there for Except for the one I wasn't there for Cologne Final answer Yeah I wrote this backstage We could play that first

1:14:06But you have to give the context What context? The context of Richter being like Lizzie have you ever written Like a long song before? And she's like no And he's like you should And then like we all went to the Not Like the band and I Went to catering And had You know like an okay Sandwich And then we came back And Lizzie was like I did it And we're like Right Like do the whole song? She's like yeah And like she played it for us In the green room Like start to finish So the voice memo Is from that green room Yeah So I wrote it And then I was like I want to do a concert So I brought everyone together

1:14:37And I sat everyone down And I was like This is the song And then I played it But yeah I was listening to a lot of Hajira by Joni Mitchell A lot of that album And all those songs Are like at least Five minutes long And I was just really inspired I was like I want to do something like that I've never challenged myself To just like Write like that So this song kind of Was like A stream of consciousness Train of thought It's very loose In its structure Melody wise It doesn't really I mean it repeats itself But it's like

1:15:07A very strange structure To the melody And the verses And all the chords It's just like Kind of weird But I Some would say Strange Our strange structure Our strange structure But yeah I was really inspired by Joni When I was When I was writing this And yeah Do you want We can play the first little Yeah So when we hear this We're being taken back To that You're in the green room I can play Then we can do the

1:15:38Full voice moment But finding the verse first Maybe Because it's interesting To hear like Because the melody Is so Like floaty And not really grounded It's interesting to hear Like finding that Somewhere in a great hall So slow Great hall You play the piano I am over the sea And far away

1:16:09With my eyes On the target And I Sing my songs For you Yeah I was just like Kind of It was very stream Of consciousness And then This is why You're writing it Yeah I didn't even know That existed And then I just Kind of found it Eventually You want to play The full thing Because the beginning Of this I brought Mason And Molly Into my room And I played it For them You were like Do you have a recording Of that And I was like No And then you were like Do it right now

1:16:40I was like Okay And we can Because I was supposed To be signing things At this time You were meant to be signing But instead you were singing There it is Wait play the beginning And then I'll sign these I promise Okay Somewhere in a great hall You play the piano

1:17:13I am over the sea And far away With my eyes on the tar And then the ending Is interesting Because it was You know five minutes long When I wrote it And I had always Kind of wanted It to be longer And I was like What if we like Changed keys Or something at the end Like what if we like Did something Interesting like that And this was before We had the idea To bear speed

1:17:44The end of the outro Which was my idea But before we had that idea I was like I wonder if there's like An outro That we could add Like maybe I was I was trying to figure something out On guitar And then One day I was just like What if it's on piano And what if it's in the same key Because I was listening to Daniel Caesar's newest album Son of Spurgy And there's a song on there Called Sins of the Father I think And there's like The main song And then there's like A minute Or two minutes Of just like Crickets

1:18:15And then at the end It's just him on piano Like doing like A voice memo Esque thing And I was like That is so cool And I was like I kind of want to do Something like that So I wrote one The first one End of Strange Ways Which was the first Kind of iteration of this I had lyrics But I didn't know What the vibe would be Never heard this It's very spooky It's Yeah A ghost would love this I think it's the same lyrics That's a scissorhands vibe

1:18:46I think that's it Wow It's the only lyrics It's so spooky A little Danny Elfman Exactly John Williams This could be our James Bond song When they call us

1:19:17Please call us John Barry We really want to do it There's no more lyrics That's it So that's why The one that we ended up Using is called A Better Ending A Better Ending Yeah Because Because I was like That one didn't Really feel right Yeah And then I wrote I wrote the real one That we just used The voice memo Yeah Amazing For those who Haven't heard the song yet In its entirety I should explain That it starts At about 5.33 It starts to fade out And it kind of fades To a bit of Kind of silence Maybe some sounds You can't work out

1:19:48Whether it has The song ended But then it Comes back in At about 5.50 The piano comes in Yeah Yeah Just so that people know And then And then And that carries on To about 7.23 I think it is More or less Yeah For the interim Audio moments We just like Rolled a mic In the live room At Henson Yeah We rolled like The room mics Just turned up Like all the way And so you can hear Me and Sam laughing And then you can hear

1:20:18Mason walking Through Because I was like Mason go like Walk through And like make some noise And I think You were Right before Right before We were rolling in Without your consent But he walked in And he was like Singing really loudly And then like As soon as he stopped singing That's where we like Bring him in So you can hear him Like walking through And then the door opens And shuts And then the voice Mom will start But it's interesting I mean that You know this was all Thought out You know that Very intentional You know that you had This idea that there Would be a different Kind of extra ending

1:20:49It did come later In the process We had the main song Pretty much done Or like almost done Almost done By the time we had

Arranging Our Strange Ways

1:20:57That idea But Right Right Let's dive in Yeah let's dive into The full recording There's so many things We should start with Lizzie's guitar first Because it's a really It's one of my favorite Recorded guitar sounds That we've gotten And I mean to me Another I mean Seems obvious But Lizzie's guitar playing I think on this record More than any of her previous Is really It was important To me at least To showcase Because Lizzie is an amazing Guitar player And I Somewhat selfishly

1:21:28Wanted that to be More featured on this record Like the different tunings Her Her finger style Playing is so unique And Especially the chemistry Of Lizzie's guitar playing And Taylor's piano playing On this record I thought Since we get to really start At the very very beginning Of each song And like literally And just From the ether Like the chemistry And any The potency Between those two Coexisting And setting up Each song In a different way For the piano And guitar To really speak To each other

1:21:58And the guitar Sound on this Song in particular It's actually An electric guitar It's an early I think it's of 1953 Gibson ES-140 We call it Omar Jr. I don't know Exactly when that name Came from That's because So I have a guitar That I named Edith After a Joni song Edith and the Kingpin And then At the same time That Mason got me Or found those two Guitars for me They had been together Their whole lives They were together And so I got both of them And

1:22:29You kept Omar Jr. For a long time And then Omar had it For a long time I took custody Of that guitar For a while So then we just Kind of like Named it Omar Jr. And now like We share him We were carting around A lot of instruments From a lot of Different studios And at a certain point It was like Mason's car is full Of guitar So he left Lizzy's out And I'm like I'm gonna take This guitar home And take care of it I guess So it's Omar Jr. Which is this old ES-140 That guitar And Edith Which is

1:22:59Gibbsy's main I just called you Gibbsy Lizzy's main acoustic Gibbsy Is your nickname alert Gibbsy's acoustic And Omar Jr. Were bought together Back in the day And had the same Owner forever And at the same time Before we'd started This rec We'd initially Started it In my studio Or what was my studio In Altadena And Lizzy wanted Or I wanted For Lizzy to have Her own Electric guitar And her own Acoustic guitar I didn't have any Guitars that I really

1:23:30Felt connected to And I wanted one Yeah And when my buddy Trevor Who's an amazing Friend and Can find any Any special guitar That's hidden Under a rock In the world He finds And when he Called me About these two I was like I know exactly Who they should Go to So they now Get to carry on For the next Generation of their Life still together And we hadn't Really used Omar Jr. Yet enough On this record As much as Edith Had really been

1:24:01An important part And we didn't Want to lose The acoustic vibe Either So it's Omar Jr. Which is an old P90 And it's original Very old Flat wound strings Plugged into A VB2 A Boss VB2 Which we ran I tried to run Everything through The VB2 Like turned basically All the way down Largely succeeded Yeah And just like It's just a little Bit of pitch vibrato And the most Musical one For some reason The VB2 Has a sound That no other Vibrato can match And I wish they could

1:24:31Because I would like To not have to Keep buying Old VB2s And modding them And so it's That electric sound Going through I think My champ Just like my One fender champ That we use For everything Then Omar Also miked Omar Jr. From the front And so it's A combination Of an acoustic sound That's very direct And up close And touchy And tactile With this Swimmy Electric sound And then they're They're blended together I think there's a DI too Maybe Or there's two Sources on the amp I'm not

1:25:02Yeah we probably Got a DI Yeah I mean The goal for this Record In a lot of ways With Lizzie's Guitar sound Was to get as Many sources on it As we could So there's a lot Of DI In combination With microphones In strange places To I just wanted People to hear How great Lizzie's guitar Playing was And really make That more of a Part of the story On this record So Let's hear it Yeah we should It's such a Cool guitar sound Super rumbly

1:25:37You know So that's That's like a Mic in a corner Somewhere Or like up high Faced away From the source That's coming Out of the amp Yeah that's Like a room Mic Gotcha You know Just rolling Off the bottom And then we'll Put like a Spring on it And had it Panned out There's our Our close mic Which is an Old Lomo Flashlight Mic How many mics

1:26:13Is it all On the guitar As many as Possible I think Three Right This is like Our main Amp source But it's It's like a Really low Tuning Play it Finger style Pretty soft On one of Those old P90s So it's like A very warm Like kind of Rolled off Like Woolly Sound And you can Hear just Enough of that Pitch vibrato So good

1:26:45Yeah but all Together it makes This like pretty Panoramic So full But it's Just Lizzy And that's my Favorite thing Is to How much of a Story you can Tell with just One source Yeah because That kind of Sounds like A few guitars Right And that is like The main Character of This song Is that guitar Part it's like Doesn't change At all Yeah the Protagonist Yeah So and that That is all One take Yeah Yeah The whole song But because You've got Three or four Mics on it You're creating

1:27:16Yeah Exactly I mean pull Some mics out At some point Right for the The title Yeah I mean a lot Of what we Were What I was Trying to do At least Was kind of Like emulate Like some Of the chaos Of like when You are doing Like a live Session And like when We're about To do a Take for Lizzy It's like I'm gonna Make one More track And like Just grab Like the Drum overhead Or the Piano mic Or like Lizzy's like B vocal mic And just like

1:27:47Turn it all The way up And just like Roll it Just in case It's cool You know Cause like Tucked in Just a little bit It can kind of Make it just Sound like More like A record Like spill Like record Like spill You know Spill Yeah Spill No bleed Just spill The other The other Instrument that Comes in next That I feel Like is really Important Just because It's something That Taylor's Been pushing for For a long time And he finally Got What is that The ukulele The ukulele The tenor Ukulele Taylor has not One

1:28:17But three Yeah Solo Ukulele records From before His time And they're Amazing They're amazing They're so good You know it's like Being a pianist When you have 88 notes Yes I mean you have 88 notes At your disposal And you want to Just go down to Four and just Think about Four notes And it's honestly Rendered a lot of Music and it was So nice to To play it On this music Into like Halo and Kind of mirror Lizzie's guitar part With the Tenor ukulele He's got some Solo moments in there Too Conalea Can we go to

1:28:53The second verse Or wherever He does those Yeah The butterfly I mean the second Verse is Yeah the tremolo Picking Yeah it kind of Comes in and out Where is that It's a little Later in the Yeah Oh yeah

1:29:24That's Lizzie's Talking about Having like Butterflies Yeah Cause we really Yeah this song Is so like Long and there's So many different Sections that we Wanted to make sure That we Separated the Sections enough So the second Verse felt like An opportunity To like take it To a new world Cause lyrically It's talking about Like the forest And having muses To write your songs And all this stuff And so we Wanted to make it Feel

1:29:55There's that woodblock Again We wanted to make it Feel like we were In a forest And like have it Be magical And so the ukulele Really added to that The chimes And AIDS percussion And what you were AIDS percussion Really really Made it sing Some kind of Forest like elements And the Connolea ukulele Comes from High up on the mountain And on the big island It feels mystical Like the koa wood Yeah Wow It's like You're by the stream And then

1:30:29Should we talk about The melotron Yeah This is a This is a good Add for them I think they'll Like this This was hard Yeah Lizzie's playing The octave switch And I'm playing The voicings She had a specific Vision So I was like I'll just play The chorus Yeah we like Double teamed it And then Yeah I'll try you Go super free Through the melotron Plugin Let it be known This is This is what it takes Man That's awesome

1:31:01It's you know It doesn't do it On its own No What did you want To go to next We got to talk about I'm pretty sure Isn't that main guitar That comes in Like the candlely Flickery one Is that the Stella Oh yeah That is the Stella This recording This for me Selfishly Like this was Like a moment Where I was like This is crazy Like this guitar Sounds nuts Mason has like So many Just weird Guitars Yeah From like The prehistoric era Of stringed instruments And this is like This giant Like it looks like

1:31:32A like a naval Boat or something It's this oversized Like baritone 12 string guitar From like the 20s Yeah it's a little Over 100 years old And they're made of Basically trash They're horrible Horrible guitars So a lot of them Didn't survive And this is even One of the lower Quality ones From the era So it's not like A spruce top It's a lot of birch And just the cheapest Wood they could get So it It wants to implode But it's a 12 string Tuned Is that Stella

1:32:05Or is that the McAferry That's the That's the McAferry Really See here I am Where's the Stella It's in here right That sounds beautiful See there's so many guitars Those voices Yeah there are a lot of guitars And yet not enough I just I had a moment When we were rolling this Where I was like I feel like You know And like what Lizzie's Singing about it That's not the McAferry That's the Gibson Oh the one that I was Obsessed with The one that Marcus Marcus gave me For my birthday Another guitar Last summer A guitar I've always Wanted of his I think it's the HG

1:32:36Marcus Mumford That is 120 Our old box Or 20 Or HG18 I'm embarrassed To not know The model name Exactly right now It is It's definitely That guitar And it was a guitar They made Before the electric guitar When there's that whole Rush to get A louder guitar And so everyone Was coming up With different solutions And Gibson made one That kind of had This inner chamber And then all these F holes on the top As well as a sound hole To kind of allow The chamber to breathe And do something It just makes the guitar Sound worse Than a normal guitar

1:33:07But strung In an interesting way I have a whole thing That I learned From a mentor of mine Where it's like a gift If someone gives you Something You know Like a shirt You should wear it And if someone gives you A guitar And it's strung In a weird way You should leave it And so these were The strings And the tuning Marcus had it in When he gave it to me And it meant So much to me That he remembered I love this guitar And this was one Of the first things We recorded So I took it out Of the case The way it was tuned And that's Beautiful That's what we

1:33:38Sounds like a Flickering Close but distant Like wavering Candle Firefly It goes back To that thing We were talking About where it's like That is a guitar Right But it's almost Banjo-ish It's almost Resonator-ish It's hard to Distinguish And that's That's the sweet spot We try to live in So I'm just going to

1:34:17Clarify for myself That guitar you were Just talking about That was a Gibson That was given to you By Marcus Mumford Correct Yeah It wasn't the Two previously Described guitars Turns out Nope No This is what Happened To clarify that We need to go Through the Rolodex Before remembering It's tricky though So there are Not just Multiple mics On Lizzie's guitar As she plays it But then there are Other guitars Added to the whole sound So many guitars And this sound world Of a forest-like

1:34:48Environment That you've created For the setting Of the song Is kind of Occupied By all these Different guitar And multiple Instrument creatures Who are expressing Themselves And making their Little chittery Animal noises In the background Exactly And in terms of Recording the vocals For this song Where did you record Them and what did you do? Did you have A particular approach? Because I know That you went To different places To record different things

Studio History and Gear

1:35:16I mean honest to God Like recording Lizzie's vocals It's just like Let it happen And like don't Mess anything up You know It's just like Pick the right mic Like pick a good mic And just You know Set the gain Correctly I mean we We kind of Operate like We try to do Like as much As we can On the way in So we're definitely Like recording Lizzie like With compression And like Not really EQ Usually Very much EQ But like I like to sing In the compression I think most people Like to sing In the compression Not in a live setting

1:35:46But like in a studio You know So it's usually Like Lizzie on a 67 Or 47 With like an old 1176 On the vocal Just to kind of Like control stuff Because a lot of the songs Have like a ton Of dynamic range Yeah But this was like The Joni 67 I mean we rolled this At Henson Now known as Chaplin Who like That was like My first time Ever working at like A real like Big big nice studio Really? Yeah When they give you Like a mic list They're like Tell us your input list And your setup And like we'll set it up

1:36:17For you And I was like What do you mean You'll set it up For me Why would you do that? And then they're like They have like Every mic you've ever Heard of And never heard of And they're like Yeah we have nine 67 You can have six Of them at a time And I was like Just give me like Two 67s for the vocals And all this stuff But uh Yeah we just put Lizzie In the big room Not quite in the center But kind of like A third Into the big room And I don't even think We had like panels Behind her We just put her

1:36:47In a spot in the room That was like Physically like Available and open And like sounded good And turned her So she could just Kind of like Look like into the space And not stare into the glass Yeah And just kind of Had her like On a good old 67 And like all the stuff At that studio Like the old Starbird mic stands And like The sliding doors For the ISO booths Like they have A&M records Stickers on them And some of the mics Have like You know Hand engraved Like A&M Like with the year Or like their own Serial

1:37:17So it's like All that stuff's been Used for A&M records For years Which is like Really special It means like People like Joni and like Crosby Stills Nash Like all those people Are like using that stuff And like We use some of the Echo chambers there That like People have been Like piping stuff Through for forever And Historic There's like It's a difference Between going from like You know All these random studios We were at To going to somewhere That has like A deep like Lore In history Yeah And also connected To the inspirations For your music Yeah Really cool Yeah So kind of thrilled To be able to

1:37:47Use some of that equipment Yeah Amazing Responsibilities right And responsibilities That's heavy The last generation Is like Okay what are you guys Going to do now I feel like we should Talk about the outro Maybe We should talk about I really feel like The Belzuki deserves Alright yeah And the outro Yeah and the outro Just because that was My main character Contribution To this record So I'm very proud of it Yeah In 30 seconds or less Tell us what the Belzuki is The Belzuki It sounds like an Italian dessert

1:38:18If you don't The Belzuki was the original Electric 12 string guitar Made by Dan Electro And it was designed By Vincent Bell Where the name comes from As a legendary session player On the east coast And he had a great deal With Dan Electro Where he would Kind of Come up with crazy ideas And a lot of the ideas Are now commonplace In the guitar And recording world Kind of came from Vincent Bell Icon alert Yeah He's my hero And I try to use Every one of his creations On this record From the bass 6

1:38:48To the Dan Electro sitar To the Belzuki But what's cool about it Is it has flat wound strings And it's a much Pure 12 string sound Than like You think of like The jangly Beatles Sound or the British Jangly 12 string sound This is much more Like wrecking crew And like Beach Boys And so just single notes It's really A single note instrument It's not The easiest to play It's like the companion To the bass 6 In a way Yeah And it became a huge part Of this record And on the outro

1:39:19There's just a simple Repeating melody That kind of keeps The trance going And that's all The Belzuki And it's a really unique I love the history of it I love how weird it looks And I love Taking something That has been rendered Somewhat obsolete For so long And bringing it back Onto a new record And kind of giving it Life again Let's hear it It's quiet It leaves you wanting more Which is cool Yeah

1:39:54I had to put Kave and Remy In there too And how do you spell Belzuki Spell like it sounds B-E-L-L-Z-O-U-K-I Because the idea Wasn't to do A 12 string guitar He wanted to do A bazooki Which is like A Greek instrument Right yes And that was to have Doubled strings And he thought Okay well I play guitar And it'd be cool To have a bazooki sound On a record Not you know

1:40:25That's so cool About the history Of these things He wasn't thinking About what 12 string Guitar was To come He was thinking I want a bazooki On a record And it's from that That we got The 12 string guitar And that's so cool But yeah There's something so Pure about it And I don't know Why any other 12 string doesn't I feel like Other 12 strings

1:40:56Make you want to Play chords And get shimmery The strings are also Backwards on it From a typical 12 string So that's part Like there's all These little differences About it That are technically Incorrect But the combination Of all those things Being incorrect Gives you something Yeah And it like Sounds so good With like weird effects On it Like it wants to be Kind of placed In a certain way Yeah A lot of the film scores

1:41:27In the 60s and 70s Were Vinnie Bell And him using The instrument So it has a very Almost inadvertently Nostalgic sound Because the last time We heard all of these Was on like Bond themes And film score Songs from that era So it kind of Gives you that That sound Just because That was the last time We heard it So cool Should we talk about The wind down Yeah Winding down here Yeah We like We had to do this last

1:41:58Because we had to Commit the mix Before we could Tune it down So The whole time We were making this song We were like Yeah And eventually here It's gonna It's gonna pitch down And then We're imagining it And also every time People would come Into the studio We'd be like This is where It's gonna happen This is where it's gonna happen Right here And I promise It's gonna be cool And it's not gonna be too much It's not gonna be weird And don't look at me Like that Molly Like just give us a chance Molly And And thank God It worked And that really Will McClellan Our mixer

1:42:28Incredible I've known him forever Through my years At Sound City He was Tony Berg's engineer And still is But he's who we tapped To mix this And Yeah We really like Locked in together Will did so much work On his own And then I would I would go in And sit with him For hours And just like Comb through each song And we We would mix together And he's so good And he just like Understands music Yeah So well And he really understood This record He deserves a major Major shout out Major shout out

1:42:59To Will Huge props We'll send him a t-shirt Yeah We'll get him some Jammy Dodgers Should we just like Listen to the Wind Down Yeah My tune down vocals Macintosh Plus Yeah Kave slide down So nice The rain stick Yeah The rain stick Is the vaporwave

1:43:29Still dead Or is the vaporwave Not dead again Or is it still dead What is that I know There it is Alright Yeah Dead To hear the laugh Me and Sam Cool We could do this all day Should we kind of play A bit of the outro To round things off Yeah Let's go from the

1:44:00Right before the drums enter Yeah let's check it out Ooh the ukulele So good Remy on background vocals Our drummer

1:44:30Remy Morin It's not one I want to know I want to hold A world without you It's not one I need to see I need to have I hate to think Somewhere there is A world like that Strings in there Ace tone with the strings

1:45:03There's so many little Like ear candy moments Tyler Nuffer on steel Yeah getting us Into those choruses I love everyone Following that motif too A world without you A world without you A world without you

1:45:34A world without you A world without you beautiful that is our strange ways by lizzie mccalpine from angel and i should suggest that

1:46:06if you haven't heard the full thing you need to listen to the album and listen to our strange ways from the start to the finish to get the full picture but you've had it all kind of explained

Closing Thoughts and Ugly Things

1:46:16to you in detail here absolutely fascinating thank you so much um we will let you go but there are a couple more questions we want to ask um one is i mean you've mentioned it in a way already but you know we ask about gear and we ask about favorite pieces of gear and all this kind of stuff but is there a particular piece of kit essential to making this album you've already mentioned the ace tone keyboard as being in a way the glue that glued the whole record together is there anything else in some ways lizzie's been pretty essential but really it's the ace tone it's the belzuki edith edith the 1170s ace tone was a birthday present

1:46:55for mason to me too so i just really i really needed him to have one also yeah i kept sending him them to buy and then they would someone else would snatch them up and i was like you son of a i'm just gonna so so so we so now he knew what he was doing yeah i was i was in it for the long con the last record was really about the fun machine felted piano the felted piano and the bass six and this record was much kind of breathier and wider yeah sounds and brighter sounds too last

1:47:28record was so dark in hindsight very moody and kind of not grumpy but uh it was pretty sad it was like it's pretty devastating it was like it's a pretty devastating record the last record is like being in a dark room with like a window yeah on the other side and this one's more like outside looking in i feel like yeah that's a good way to describe it we always ask people about advice whether they've got advice that they would pass on to others now that you are older and wiser um and no we're talking

1:47:59to you after that album and after that um you know experience and now you've had the angel experience you know is there anything that you've learned that you would make a note of or pass on really with every record this just gets stronger and stronger but i feel like just trust your gut and like stay true to yourself which like i learn every time i make a record but it just yeah it gets stronger every time and i i it's gets it also gets easier to trust my gut every time you make a record i feel

1:48:30like it wouldn't sound like this if i hadn't like you know advocated for what i wanted and stood up for what i knew should be the thing um yeah i feel like i just you got to stand up for what you want don't let anyone tell you differently who in this room mostly do you feel like you had to stand up to yeah for example oh my god anyway that's my advice yeah yeah no i like it it's good um we should let

1:49:00you go we'll have a another song as a kind of outro piece we were talking earlier about ugly things because ugly things was a song um that we were going to discuss is there anything you want to say about ugly things before we go into it just that this song is so fun and good and i love it this is the one on the record that feels like the most pop like whatever that means i don't really know what that means but it definitely felt like it was meant to be a single because it just feels like so classic like the structure the melody everything just feels so good i think the most important thing

1:49:35is lizzie's single note played with her pinky yeah that's that goes throughout the song oh my god yeah it's not normal i split up the guitar part because the the top note was a little loud and we wanted to have control over it so he made me do a take that just was playing one note the whole time with your little finger yeah yeah and then i love the way you recorded the mini piano on this like that is the little refrain at the end of every chorus like this kind of like emphatic melody kind of while you process the the lyric i think that's the one where the mic slowly just fell

1:50:09yeah into the piano and then you told me that story you're like that's what everyone wants but they don't know that they want the mic that's just fully inside the piano yeah i've heard that story yeah yeah no it's beautiful and then ted pours drumming on the end it's pretty exceptional i mean it's all and everything yeah i love this song excellent i'm gonna do it yeah thanks again i should say thank you to all before you hit play so omar thank you taylor thank you mason thank you lizzie thank you thank you for having us it's a real pleasure it's great talking to you um thanks again and let's hear ugly things thank you for listening and in particular thanks to all of you who have signed

1:50:50up to support us on patreon i'm just one part of the team that brings you take notes and it relies on your support 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 take notes community once again thank you for listening until next time goodbye watching you move from a distance

1:51:29coming back home to a lonely existence reading your letter you did all the dishes all the ugly things that you're doing now try to help you sleep try to push it down

1:52:04all the ugly things will come back home you you you you you you you you you you