TN:192 Troye Sivan & Tyde Levi

Meet Troy Sivan and Tide Levi

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0:19Hello, I'm John Kennedy, and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes is Troy Savan, alongside producer Tide Levi, digging into how they wrote, recorded, and produced tracks from Troy's latest album, She's the Best. Sitting down with Troy and Tide at Platoon Studios, we dug into Cowboy, Canada Dry, and of course, we couldn't not hear about Party. Each of them had some pretty amazing demos and early versions, and it was so interesting to hear how they evolved it all along the way. It was also fascinating to see the two of them in each other's company.

0:50They are both artists in their own right, but they are also brothers, and it was clearly very special to them that they've been able to work on this album together. If you would like to watch the podcast, you can do so on the Tape Notes Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash tapenotes. As well as the full video episode, we also post behind-the-scenes content, gear lists from each episode, monthly plug-in prizes, and we'll let you know about upcoming recordings, so you can send us your questions to put to our guests. So, if you'd like to join us there, head over to patreon.com forward slash tapenotes.

1:22Thank 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 offer on the pro version, head to tape.it forward slash tapenotes. But now, without further ado, let's get started.

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3:07Troy Sivan is an Australian singer-songwriter and producer. Troy came to global attention in the late 2010s through YouTube and Australian talent shows. This led to a record deal with EMI, aged just 18, and a global hit with his first EP, Trikes, in 2014. Troy's debut album, Blue Neighborhood, which arrived in 2015, blended electropop and dance with open LGBTQ plus themes and reached the US top 10.

3:40He followed it with Bloom in 2018 and the twice Grammy-nominated Something to Give Each Other in 2023. Alongside his own work, Troy has collaborated with numerous artists, including Charli XCX and Ariana Grande, selling out tours worldwide. Described as the perfect pop star with a huge and devoted global fan base, to date, Troy's music has now been streamed over 20 billion times. His fourth album, She's the Best, was released in October 2026, working with producer and brother Tide Levi,

4:11Stiles Fuego, the 1975's George Daniel, and Jack Antonoff, among others. Today, I'm joined by Troy and producer Tide Levi at Platoon Studios.

Listening to Le Boy

4:22And what better way to start our conversation than by hearing something from She's the Best. This is Le Boy.

4:31Driving around Do things I enjoy I got the car But baby, I Still haven't found I Waiting around I Looked up and down Down, down Yeah I'm getting impatient, baby

5:05Cause I Still haven't found It is Troy Saban with Le Boy.

5:39From the album She's the Best

Working together as brothers

5:40And I'm very pleased to say that I'm here at Platoon Studios with Troy Saban. Hello, Troy. Hello. How's it going? Very good. Thank you. That's good. And Tide Levi is also here. That's right. How are you? Hello, Tide. Nice to see you. It's great to see you both. And for those who don't know, you are brothers. Yes. Together. We have the same last name in real life. But both of us were dramatic enough to choose our middle names as like stage names. I like it. Thank you. It works. But you have actually worked together on this record. And I think that's a first. Yes, it is. Yeah. I mean, we've lived together before.

6:14Almost forever. Yes, almost forever. Because we obviously grew up in the same house. And then when I moved out in Melbourne, Tide moved in with me. And so I've always made music. Tide has always made music. Kind of like in our bedrooms separately. And we would always send each other stuff, always. But never worked together on anything like officially. More just like kind of giving each other opinions and thoughts and things like that. And then this album process for me was very different from any other. I was really sort of fascinated by music that felt like it was coming from a different place other than the recording studio.

6:51Kind of, you know, I listened to Since I Left You by The Avalanches. And I was like, wow, this album has so much like life in it, you know, because it's these samples. It's all these like kind of found sounds. And that was really, really inspiring to me. I think as a sort of natural pendulum swing from like my last album, which I was really focused on like Swedish level pop. You know, I was really excited by the idea of trying to do something that felt a lot more unpredictable and maybe like messier almost. And I recorded a lot of my vocals at home and whatever.

7:24And so part of that was just like me making music at home. And because we live together, I think I was just maybe more open minded than I'd ever been before. And Tide would send me songs and all of a sudden we were like making music together. And it was a really like effortless thing, I feel like. Yeah, it kind of happened like by chance. I feel like I was just trying things like with no intention of making him take it or trying to get him to take it. And it just kind of worked. Yeah, well, thank goodness it did. Finally, finally, you got around to working together.

7:55Excellent. Well, we're going to look at three tracks in depth from She's the Best. And the first one we're going to look at is Party.

Unpacking the track Party

8:01So maybe you could give us a blast of the master time. Let's listen to that one. Party in the park. Party in the bush. Party under the bridge. Party at the restaurant. Party at the club. Party in the day. Party in my house. Party on the way to the party at the park. Party in the bush. Party under the bridge. Party at the restaurant. Party at the club. Party in the day. Party in my house. Party on the... Party in the park.

8:38Party at the park. Party in the bush. Party under the bridge. Party at the restaurant. Party at the club. Party in the day, party in my house, party on the way to the party in the park, party in the bush, party under the bridge, party at the restaurant, party at the club, party in the day, party at my house, party under the... It is Troy Sivan with Party from She's the Best. That's an awful lot of partying there going on, Troy. It is, it is. It's amazing. Thank you. Such stamina. Right, I know, yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, the starting point for this song, so I was in the studio with Leland, who's like my best friend, and Luca and Elvira, who worked on the Addison Rae album.

9:22Amazing album. Amazing, amazing album. And Tove was in the room, and I think it was, I think that was the crew for the day. And I remember having a bad day. Like we were, I was, there was like some stuff going on that I was just like upset about. And so we wrote one song that was about the stuff that was going on. And then I also wanted to write this kind of like escapist thing. And I think, again, like going back to, I've always felt a bit like a sort of like goody two shoes a little bit.

9:53You know what I mean? Like I'm very humbly, I'm very polite. I'm like always on time, you know, all this stuff, whatever. And I think something was kind of like unlocked in me a little bit with the last album, where I started to really, really, really enjoy partying. And just like, you know, from the perspective, honestly, of like it feeling kind of almost like spiritual to me. I think that, I think there's something so pure and beautiful about people getting together to dance. I just think that's very, very sweet and have had a lot of really kind of like amazing experiences on, on the dance floor.

10:28And, and so something that was fascinating to me about dance music was how different music sounds when you're on the dance floor versus when you're like listening to it. Like we are now, you know, like time feels different and passes differently and repetition, the way that dance music uses repetition, it becomes almost like hypnotic. You know what I mean? And you can really, really lose yourself in it. And so we started with this lyric kind of like inspired by that Lady Gaga interview where she's like bus, club, another club, plane, bus, whatever. But I was like, okay, this is how it sort of feels.

11:00And so we started writing this lyric and the lyric becomes like a perfect circle and it becomes party on the way to the party. And I just thought it was so kind of like irreverent and almost out of my character to be like, I'm not going to write any verses. There's no pre-chorus. I'm just going to do this one spoken thing. And it's probably going to get really annoying for people. But I really, really, really like, you know, like this idea of kind of like paying homage to the dance floor in this way and to partying in this way. And the lyrics were so fun to write.

11:31I mean, like party in the bush is definitely like a nod to like Australian party culture. We have bush duffes, which are just like duffes in the bush. Yeah. I mean, I love that whole concept. Yeah, it's fun. And it does seem such an important aspect of Australian life. It is. It really, really is. Well, it's informed so many different Australian artists that have come through, which is really interesting. And yet, I think the rest of the world doesn't have bush duffes. Surely you've got something similar, like countryside, beautiful English countryside duff. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we used to have outdoor raves, which were then deemed illegal.

12:04And they brought in a new clause to make sure they couldn't happen. So usually these are illegal. Like, I feel like it's almost always that the cops do show up at some point. There are a lot of like, obviously like park parties, especially like down by the Yarra River, which is like very big in Melbourne. And the cops sometimes show up. But they're pretty good at like not being terrible and like taking equipment or doing things. They're just like, guys, go, go home. We went to one over New Year's that I was so impressed. This was like completely an unofficial party.

12:34But they had like medic tent, toilets, like it was fully just a festival. And we like camped over the weekend, over New Year's. It was so much fun. But yeah, so we have this lyric. And at the time I was singing the lyric. And, you know, I was like, we have that version if you want to play it. So would this have been the first version or the first demo that you've done? The very first one. I don't remember if there's verses on it. Is there? You're like mumbling, I think? This is probably going to be really bad. Yeah, I like hadn't heard this in so long.

13:07So this is part of my process for sure is I will go on the mic and sing nonsense. And then if I like it, I'll try and find a lyric. It doesn't always happen like that, but sometimes it does. And so this is me singing absolute garbage.

13:34The rest kind of slaps.

13:50So what's going on there? And, you know, you're in the room with all these other people. They've been working on this music. Yeah, so the track was happening kind of at the same time throughout the day. And are you singing into the auto-tune there? Yeah, so then I'll go into the booth, ask them to turn the tune to max so that I'm not like at all self-conscious about like I can kind of feel free to explore melodically without being self-conscious about maybe like hitting a bum note or whatever. And, yeah, I'll just kind of like try and find phrasing that's interesting to me or melody that's interesting to me. Like it's all shapes in the end of the day, you know, and so I think just finding the shape that feels right.

14:26And sometimes I'll do a pass and I'll be like, oh, actually, I really like the way I started that, but drop me in. And then I'll kind of like keep going like that until we have a general shape of maybe a verse into a pre-chorus, into a chorus kind of thing. And like I said, it's not like that every time. Sometimes I write in the room and then I'll go in and record after the fact. But then sometimes it's like this.

Building the spoken vocal style

14:44But you'll hear the chorus. Yeah, you'll hear the chorus.

14:55That's crazy.

15:00And at this point, had you done this as a spoken word thing? No, no. So then I go home and I wake up at like 6 a.m. every day for some reason in L.A. And I'm very emboldened and empowered by my at-home mic setup that I have. It's literally just an SM7 and an Apollo Twin. And I like asked an engineer friend of mine to like set up a nice vocal chain for me. It's got some kind of like very basic plugins on it that I know how to use. And I can record myself at home now, which is amazing. And I did this really, really weird version where I spoke it because I had the idea.

15:38I was like, it could be kind of cool if I speak a cappella and then the track comes in, whatever the track is. And we kind of like, you know, mess with that. And so that was the idea. You produced this one. I mean, it's like a spice loop. I mean, that sounds like the party's really gone into something.

16:16But I mean, the whole idea is there, isn't it? Right. So the idea is sort of there. And the funny thing is that if you play the beginning again, you can hear me going the... It's because I forgot the lyric. And I'm just like... Party under the bridge. Under the bridge, yeah. And so I sent Tide this bounce. And so he has that opening a cappella with me saying the... And all that stuff. I think the day before he sent this to me, I had started a demo that I called If Rush Was Dirtier. Because I was like listening to Rush and I was like, damn, this song is so good.

16:47I want to make like a daddy version of this. And I think I just started with the drums and like the sub. It was just this. You know, that's what I had like basically started making the day before. And then I was like, hmm, I wonder if I can chop this little vocal thing.

17:18And then this was born. Party in the park. Party in the bush. Party under the bridge. Party at the restaurant. Party at the club. Party in the day. Party in my house. Party on the way to the party at the park. Party in the bush. Chop that and that became the track basically. Party in the day. Party in my house. Party under the... That little chop at the end though, that was what got me. Really? I was like, that's really fun. I mean, that's kind of like the essence. That's the way.

17:50We called it a day. That was it.

17:54No, then Stiles Fuego. Well, sorry, before that, my best friend, Rob Feier, who I produced all three of the songs that we've got on Troy's album, came over and we fleshed out the rest of the track and really made it into basically what you hear. And then Stiles came on and you guys kind of changed some of the verse. Parts and added a couple of parts. It's actually hilarious how many people are on this song, considering how simple it is. And how many versions? We had like 13 versions, like literally.

18:26Yeah. I think that the process from this point onwards was Stiles and I have worked together for so long and I just trust him so much. And he's so brilliant at like cleaning things up and seeing the structure and he's also an amazing, amazing vocal producer. And at some point in this process, Leland, because we kept coming back to it. I was like, should I write a second part? Should I not? I would go in and write the second part. And I was like, every time I do this, it feels like it totally. Can I swear?

18:57Totally fucks up the whole ethos of the song, which needs to be this like irreverent, kind of like lazy thing that just goes and goes and goes and goes. It can't feel like it's trying too hard. You know what I mean? Without kind of like ruining the whole thing. And so I don't know if we ever recorded them, but there was so many versions where I was trying a new part and every single time it would spoil it. And then at one point, I don't remember when it was, one of the many, many sessions that we did, like sort of thinking about this song, Leland, who's like my best friend and my closest

19:29collaborator, we worked together for so long. He's on every song on the album. He started singing music by Madonna over the sort of B part. Like there's like the A part and the B part. And he was sort of singing it over there. And I was like, wait a second, that feels right. Because in my head, all of a sudden the story became, you're kind of like witnessing this party and then everything goes, it's like a vacuum and the air is sucked out of the room and all of a sudden you're in the perspective of the person who's on the dance floor. And so in the section before we added these heavy breaths and everything drops out and

20:01the kind of like sub stays in and you feel like, to me at least, it automatically started to feel super, super cinematic. I was like, okay, well, I'm like right there with this guy, whoever's, you know, it's like me, whoever's singing on the dance floor right now, whoever's talking about this party, you're there with him. And then music by Madonna starts to kind of like creep in at the party. You know, it's being played at the party. And I've had that moment before to that song, you know, and I also just think like lyrically coming back to taking this big kind of like grandiose approach to thinking about partying.

20:33The lyric of the Madonna song is so simple. Music makes the people come together. And I just think it's so true. And I think it's so beautiful. And it really just like strikes a chord with me. And so, yes, I think then kind of like understanding that there was this second sort of like dreamy section where we sample Madonna somehow, if we can, is going to be amazing. And for a while, it was just the sample. Like we took, we literally took the Madonna stems and put them in like very unofficially.

21:07I'm pretty sure we got them like off the internet or something. And it felt really, really cool, but still not a hundred percent right. And then there was the day where I went back into the studio and I recorded myself singing along with the sample in falsetto. And that was kind of when it all clicked and everything felt like it had a place and it all sort of made sense and everything. And the song was finally done. Still like true to what I wanted. It's still irreverent, still very like kind of out of my usual perfect pop structure

21:42wheelhouse, you know, but it kind of like achieved everything that I wanted it to. And it also feels very, very Melbourne to me in its production. Yeah. Like I think your, the Melbourne influence on you has been so strong. Yeah. I like, I DJ and produce dance music and yeah, like I've just gone to countless bush doofs and parties in Australia and the Melbourne sound is just like my, my absolute favorite. And we were in my bedroom in your house being like, we need this to sound like Melbourne. How do we make it sound like Melbourne?

22:13I remember like this one sound that we did. I was like, that's the one that we want. I just remember playing this. I was like, okay, this feels like something I would hear at three in the morning on a new year's festival. And then that comes in like last chorus kind of. It has a kind of timeless rave quality.

22:45Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And let's hear how the sample that works in with the rest of the track then and how you

Incorporating the Madonna sample

22:53managed to do that. And then it would be great to hear Troy's vocals alongside the sample. If you, if you have that. Do you have all that? Yeah. So the Madonna sample came in when I wasn't in the room. So that was Stiles and Troy and Leland. So I've got the like STEM session. But we got, I mean, we got the master approval as well. So Madonna is in the song. Yeah. Like it's like her vocal is in there, which is so cool to me. Did that prove to be straightforward or that wrangling? Surprisingly, yes. Yeah. I think I got really lucky. And, you know, at the time I didn't, when we made this, I didn't know that she was doing

23:25confessions too. So maybe she's really in her dance bag at the moment. Again, obviously she is. And I mean, like my earliest memory of music is Madonna. Like the first song that I remember in my life is Like a Prayer. And so she was hugely, hugely, hugely like inspirational to me. And my parents say that that's the first time that they realized that I had like a nice voice as a little boy was I was singing along to Like a Prayer and they were like, oh, you can kind of like keep a tune. So yeah. Very important like artist to me.

23:57Yeah. So you want to hear the sample and Tro's voice together? Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that. Music makes the people come together. Oh, there's that part too. The qualities.

24:16So good.

24:20Go to this one.

24:27Oh, here's Madonna. That's just Madonna. That's Troy with it. So those bits we've been listening to, they're Troy singing. Yes. The super like breathy falsetto one is me and then you get Madonna. And Madonna's in there too. Just sitting behind your voice kind of. I also just, I was going to just playing it without you singing.

24:56You realize how much Troy singing brought in the vibe.

25:03That's just the Madonna sample. We also recorded all these crowd noises and like ambient stuff.

25:10Like Troy singing it really glued the whole thing together. So I think that was the best. Party in the bush, party under the bridge. Yeah. So, sorry. That was the bit without Troy. And then we go back. Yeah. And here, Troy on top. So this is without Troy.

25:31And now if I turn Troy on.

25:41We probably had it like that for a while before you sing. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And is there a particular vocal chain or something that you had to use? So that I recorded at home. Right. On my SM7. Right. So that's the same as the original party. It was a different day, but yeah. Yeah. Same idea. Yeah. Wow. I mean, I used to think that the SM7 was like a writing mic. You know, you would just like kind of use it in the room because it's really good. It's like very directional. And then someone told me that Michael Jackson recorded on it. I know that, yeah. I know that The Weeknd used it for like all of the stuff that he did with Max Martin.

26:17Such a good mic. Yeah. I used it on Dance to This, which is my song on my second album with Ariana Grande. And I tried to re-record the vocal because again, I had this thing in my head where I was like, oh, I should record it properly in the mic in the booth or whatever. And I can never get it to sound as good. So now I have like full faith in it. I have zero sound treatment in the room that I record in. It's literally just my little office. Yeah. And it works. I don't know. But you said your friend helps set that up. Yes. And put some kind of processing on that. Yeah. So I've got this friend who's an amazing engineer called Ruffa.

26:49He came to my house for like an hour and plugged it all in and set it all up. But now all I do is I plug in the twin to my computer and I actually travel with it now. I travel with my mic and my twin because realizing that I could be that nimble, so much of the album came together in like, you know, at 7am or whatever, that it really like kind of changed the whole process for me in a really fun way. Yeah. Do you know what he put on it? What? What a tune. Yeah. There's tune like Valhalla Vintage Verb.

27:21I know he's on there. I think like the UAD kind of like plugins that are already on. Yeah. I don't think it would have changed much like from what you would have done to what Styles would have done. Mm-hmm. Probably sounded not the same. He's just got much nicer plugins probably than I do. Yeah. I mean, Valhalla's really good. Yeah. So is Echo Boy. Yeah. Is there anything else we should hear from the production? I kind of wanted to switch back just to like our original demo and play the verse. You remember that? What was it? No, not your melody. Just the production. Oh. Because it did change a lot before you guys added the verse.

27:53It was just more, there was like some pads. Oh, the arpeggiated thing. Yeah, exactly. Because we thought Troy would write a verse. So it kind of comes out. It's a fair thought to have that the song might have a verse. Might have a verse on it. Oh, this is like triggering to me to hear. Really? Because I tried so many times to write something over this. So we thought there'd be some beautiful singing verse before the talking comes back in again.

28:25Party in the park, party in the bush, party under the bridge. I love that little vocoder thing. Vocoder, yeah. Is that you? I think that's me in the vocoder, yeah. Party at the park, party in the bush, party under the bridge, party at the restaurant, party at the club. So fun. Yeah, so that was original verse, like structure, I guess. And then styles, how did the breaths and the party come? That was in my at-home version that I did when I did the music bit as well. Definitely keeps you in the party.

29:11Yeah, it's great. That's inspired, though, that choice, you know, to include. Yeah, I think so. Thank you. Again, it makes you feel the physicality of the idea of somebody dancing to the music and getting lost in the music. Completely. No. But it also does remind me of the video, because we've got to mention the video. Yes. Because the breath somehow takes a place in the video, doesn't it? It has a, you know, in contrast to what you're seeing on screen, but you've got this kind of breathy stuff going on. But also, how do you get from this kind of bush-doof restaurant situation to, you know, Ivanhoe or whatever inspired you to create a battle scene with knights in shining armor and then, you know, a beautiful old house with some serious partying going on?

29:57So it was a conversation with Gordon Von Steiner, who's the director of all my music videos, and I have to fully give him credit. This was his idea, you know, because I thought that the plan was going to be sort of what you'd expect, which I knew she's the best. The video takes place on the streets of New York, and then I thought I was going to walk downstairs and find a club, and we were going to do Party in the Club. You know, so I thought it was going to be a sort of like a nightclub video, maybe turn up the volume a little bit, even more from Rush.

30:30But Gordon was like, we've sort of done that before in Rush. And he was like, and I have an idea. It's kind of a crazy idea. He was like, I want to make it medieval. And I was just like, what? Like, why? And the more that we spoke about it, basically, the idea was that if partying is this cyclical thing that can go and go and go and go forever, surely it has always, you know, gone and gone and gone in the other way as well in the past. And I think that, you know, just talking more and more about it, we were like, I actually do think that the desire and the need to let loose is like a human need and a human right, you know?

31:10And I think that that is really special. And like, I truly believe that, you know, babies come out of the womb and they start like dancing. It's like one of the first things that they know how to do, you know? So I just, I think that we just went really extra with it. And we were like, what, where were all the queer people? What were they up to? And what did a party look like, you know, a thousand years ago or whatever? And so then from there, we were kind of like off to the races. I was still not, I was not sold for the first like 10 seconds. And then he was like, we'll shoot it like the favorite.

31:40And I was like, oh, right. Okay. I mean, like, let's, let's do this kind of thing. Cause then I was like, this is going to be, I said to him, I was like, if we can pull this off, I think it'll be like the coolest thing we've ever done. It could also be just terrible, like, like really, really bad. And so I would never have done it with anyone else. I think that him and I both trust each other so much. And we work so just like well together and closely together and put in so much time into pre-production and rehearsal and fittings.

32:13Like, you know, everything is the, by the time we get to set, we don't have time. We're shooting like these crazy videos in two days, you know, with like a hundred extras, you know, there's really no time to, to kind of like mess around. And so by the time we get to set, it really just feels like you're sort of pushing the domino and kind of going through the motion of the day to capture everything that we know that we need to capture. But this was two film crews. We were at a castle, like two hours outside of London. Berkeley. Yeah. In Berkeley, I think it's pronounced. Berkeley.

Directing the medieval music video

32:44Sorry. And then, so Tide is in the video, which was a really fun video. I'm going to have to go and watch it again. He gets a knife thrown at his head. Oh, no, I know the bit. Yeah. By his girlfriend, by the way. Right. She's in it. Our sister's in it. She was delighted to do that. She loved it. Our sister's in the video. So, but I think it really, really, yeah, a couple of friends from Melbourne. We randomly had some friends from Melbourne in like, you know, Europe or whatever. And so they kind of came in for it, but it really, really hit me when we got to the battle scene, the kind of like scale of it.

33:19I was shook. Yeah. I was absolutely shook because I just couldn't believe it. Like so much of that. Fire and smoke and horses and it was insane. Dead, fake dead bodies. It was so, and the whole time, like, you know, I, I love how kind of camp the concept is, you know, I think it's so fun. And I think that my favorite pop videos kind of like have that about them. But then I also am really, really, really like genuinely proud of the way that it looks and feels. And I think it's kind of like exactly, it's like more than I could have ever, ever dreamt of.

33:54Yeah. For the video. Yeah. Going back to the track and the music, could you build us up through it or is there anything else you want to highlight in the song and the sound? I mean, pretty much it is what it is. I'm trying to think of like really big parts. We kind of had a really fun day in Melbourne at Synth Temple, which is just like, I think it's the biggest room in the Southern Hemisphere with like craziest and oldest synths and just amazing instruments. And we just tried everything.

34:27We turned on everything and played everything that we could. It's like actually hard to get work done in that room because there's so much stuff. Yeah. And they just, we were playing it so loud and just like over and over again. I feel like there's maybe a couple of fun things. There's like a FISMO on here that could be fun to listen to if I could find it somewhere.

34:48This is the chop kind of thing that I chopped up.

34:54I've got this really cool noise, percussion stuff.

35:01The break. That's like kind of the real bass layer of the drums.

35:10Here's the FISMO. What did we even do on this?

35:22Sort of vocal. The vocal samples.

35:31And then I did this little chop.

35:35Oh yeah, that's true.

35:42I was like, keep going. Keep going. This is all like the music.

35:52Can you solo the vocoder? Yeah.

35:55Oof. I think that's like mainly in Arturia, our vocoder plugin. And then we also did it at Synth Temple.

36:15So good. Got your lead in the bass group for some reason.

36:35And then you want to talk about Rocky? Yeah. Rocky Stallone is like an amazing, amazing MC in the Australian Vogue scene. And I saw him. It was like, I don't remember what the part he was. But he was on the mic and he got the crowd so crazy. So then he came in and he recorded a bunch of stuff. And we ended up keeping these oars from him. Oh, good.

37:06I love.

37:09Yeah. And was that all that you kept? That was all that we kept. Yeah. Because that was before we had the Madonna sample in there. So there just wasn't enough space. We could probably do like an extended version or something. Because he was going crazy on it. Oh, that sounds like a great idea. Yeah. Yeah, it was really fun. Leland's voice is in it. He's going like... Yeah.

37:41Special to me, like my best friend, my brother. That's a through line throughout a lot of the album. It's like just people that I absolutely adore are like on this album. Yeah, it's great. And I love the way, in a way, the track becomes a kind of timeless piece of music because there's a disco element to it. It's not just a Bush Doof rave number. It runs through a few decades worth of music, I think, somehow. And it somehow tips a hat to them. It also makes me really happy that, I mean, just like the credits list on the song

38:12is a party in itself. It's like there is so many people on this song. So that's really, really fun. And everyone was just so collaborative and down. And we were passing versions back and forth and back and forth. And like, I had a million versions. You had a million versions. Stars had a million versions. Yeah, it was really, really fun. I mean, I made the original song and I think I've downloaded the stems like four times to make new versions and start again and do this, you know. So really, it's had its moments. Excellent. Maybe play the end and we'll hear it all in context to round things off.

38:42Party on the way to the party at the party, party in the bush, party under the bridge, party at the restaurant, party at the club, party in the day, party at my house, party on the way to the party. Party at the party. Party at the party. Party at the party. it used to end with rocky saying hi baby just the ice long black as if he was ordering a coffee at

39:38the club and i loved that that was in there for a really long time that's got to be in the extended mix yeah for sure it comes out fantastic so that is party choice of ann we're going to take a quick break and the next song we're going to look at is cowboy imagine plugins by sound better is the world's first no code platform for designing building and selling your own professional plugins and i have shahar gilad founder of imagine plugins here to tell us more hi shahar what's the idea behind imagine plugins hey john so the idea behind imagine plugins is to empower creators be

40:13that engineers producers brands content creators to create their own plugins much more easily affordably and faster than ever before and then to commercialize them so how would i go about making a plugin you would drag and drop some of the dozens of high quality dsp blocks we have in there modulators utilities set the settings exactly the way you want them no ai prompting audition and hear it real time in the browser full hands-on control then you flip a tab to create the gui design the plugin you've got faders knobs you can choose from or you can upload your own graphics to make it all

40:46bespoke then you hit a button and build it ready to distribute copy protected and you can sell it and we don't keep a cut so whatever you sell you keep you pass a one-time build fee and that's it it's exciting on so many levels creatively and potentially financially it could revolutionize plugins so we're really excited about helping artists and creators earn more that's what sound better has always been about and i think selling software might be one of the paths forward so if you've ever wanted to design and sell your own plugin now's your chance head to imagineplugins.com

41:17forward slash tape notes to try it for yourself and download their brand new vocal effect plugin for free on tape notes we talk about the art and craft of making music but do you know how to make it in music another podcast the team from tape notes are part of does the money trench the music industry podcast with mark sutherland has weekly interviews featuring top executives lawyers managers songwriters agents and publishers they also cover the live side of the industry and of course conversations with legends from the business all guided by music biz expert and long-established music journalist

41:51mark sutherland a bit of a music legend himself previous guests include jamie obourne founder of the 1975's label dirty hit joe charrington president of capital records uk as well as previous tape notes guests producers katherine marks and phaser t smith just to name a few so join mark sutherland as he guides us through the cruel and shallow money trench of the music industry finding out how the best in the business make it new episodes every monday wherever you get your podcasts the next song we're going to look at from she's the best is cowboy but before we do i have a question

42:28from one of our patrons on patreon um albert curwood hi troy and tide when it comes to songwriting and production would you say performing the record live is something you keep in mind when creating or is that something you work out after releasing the songs i definitely think about it for sure um yeah i think like that's kind of when i feel like we're onto something is either i'll see the music video in my head or i'll see the live show and if if one of those is like coming at the same time as the music i think

42:59i'm like that means i'm kind of genuinely inspired by what we're making so yeah i do think about it for sure

Dissecting the song Cowboy

43:04yeah okay well maybe we'll delve into cowboy now so if you could give us a blast of the master that'd be great in the back of my mind you would find all the words i would say

43:37i've been calling him out but there's no way to shout so guess it doesn't matter anyway here comes the cowboy oh here comes the same here comes the same it's calling me up and there's no chance of getting away

44:07just a little taste of cowboy by troy savannah from she's the best so how did this one come about this one i remember very vividly yeah so tide and rob his best friend who we worked on party with we had party and canada dry already already yeah yeah and so then they came to la like now we're like making music together like it's actually happening and we're going to do sessions and it's like a real thing that's happening and they stayed with me in la and i should have producers live with me more

44:39often because it clearly is working but um they were walking around the house and they kept saying here comes the cowboy and i was like what is that why are you guys saying that and they waited do you remember you didn't play it for me for the first like two days or three days they waited until i was like maybe i don't know why yeah i think we were just like searching from our moment kind of it was night time i had a few beers with dinner kind of vibe so i'm like in this like very relaxed zone and they played me this demo how did you what was the process yeah so i started this again in my

45:13bedroom in choice house in melbourne and i think i was like just listening to the claro album and i called this demo like featuring claro um and i thought i was making it for me but like didn't end up writing yeah didn't end up writing anything and then you know took my demo again to my friend rob and we kind of fleshed out the whole track and i think we both knew that it like felt really nice and felt really beautiful so rob sent it to his friend jack darcy amazing amazing songwriter and he wrote some verses and

45:49the chorus to this song he's also in melbourne he's also in melbourne yeah and that was the version we took to troy and played him play that one i really didn't think this was a troy song i didn't think he would want it but rob honestly kudos to rob he was like troy's gonna love this well also it speaks to the album making process was quite confusing this time because in my life there was a lot of there was like tension i would say that was really the thing that i was feeling was just like this crazy

46:21crazy tension between these like very kind of high octane like dance moments where i'm on stage with 365 party girl charlie xcx and we're like going going going and there's this like tsunami of brat summer and rushes you know like doing well and stuff like that and then i would go home and be at the hotel and i was just like kind of lonely and and i think that it almost got exacerbated by

46:52how everything was going on like the work side and i was having the time of my life in one area of my life and then in the other area of my life feeling like almost completely just like it was just like desolate you know and so um i made the decision that i was just going to follow my heart each day and i would sometimes i would write a song that felt like it belonged on stage and like i was really kind of tapping into this like confident version of myself and then other times i would go to the studio and and be like i don't have that in me today and i want to write you

47:25know about this like deep sort of sense of longing that i have and so maybe that's why you also didn't think that it was like a me thing was because i don't know you know at the time we were working on party and kind of dry on this like full dance tip and even though i didn't really understand it at the time i knew that i wanted to to kind of make both and ultimately that's what the album has ended up kind of becoming is like it's not as easy to kind of explain to someone in one you know easily like marketable sentence but it really is about this like tension in my life at this time you know and and

47:57both are true and both exist and so the whiplash of it all is almost like kind of part of the concept of the record to me um and so having songs like like this were really important but this is what they played me when they had the the jack demo yeah

48:27so this is jack darcy singing this is jack darcy singing i love his voice he's still on there i've been calling him out but there's no way to show something that doesn't matter anyways so i heard that and i i loved it i i was like this is a really really i loved all of the shapes i

49:12love the pre-chorus going into the chorus i was also confused because i i didn't know nothing i haven't met jack i don't know what his his deal is but he's singing about a cowboy yeah and i was really intrigued and i was like this feels like um you know something that i would i would love to kind of like extrapolate on and so then i got the session from tide and rob and i muted the vocals and um same same room in my house i started writing this song about um this guy you know like a very

49:48common theme on the album is the boy this this sort of mysterious character that i i'm writing these love songs to this man that i don't know you know which um is like a little pathetic i i realized but but you know it's like there's a lot of sort of manifestation on the album and and so cowboy to me was about being visited by this guy in my dream and he's kind of like here to save the day but then you know he's gone too soon by by morning kind of thing and so then i started i muted the vocals took

50:20out my mic and the verse that is now the cowboy verse was the first thing that i sung and i remember i didn't write lyrics it was sort of like just off the cuff like i want to know you all from the inside out um you know just kind of started to to really channel the the longing into the song and then yeah so i i rewrote the verse mostly kept the pre wrote the second half of the chorus and did kind of like a structure general structure of how i imagined the song to kind of like go and

50:52then are we able to hear that version uh do you have my demo oh yes it's right here

Recording intimate home vocals

51:06and so this is recorded in the same way that you recorded the party lines because it has a really intimate whispered well i've never really sung like that before like i think you said this the

51:38other day but i think something about writing by myself in this room in my house into my own computer that i'm controlling frees me up to to try things that i probably would be too shy to try in front of other people i've never heard you sing like that yeah it was it almost reminded me of like the bridge in is it in like stacy's mom or you know when he like jumps the octave and he does that weird like little sort of whiny voice i really really like that feeling and i loved the way that

52:10i kind of loved how um yeah just like vulnerable and again i'm saying this with with love to myself but kind of like there is something a little bit there's like a real weakness there you know that i really really really like and i i think really just kind of like sinking into that feeling of like digging your nails into your skin being like i really just want to know you so bad and i don't yet you know or like i just wanted it to feel very fleeting and so that was kind of how the the verse thing came to be

52:41and then i was curious if i was going to drop the octave like when we when we actually went in to record it i thought about dropping the octave and singing it you know more like outwardly but i took this song to jack antonoff and george and we all worked on it together and they were like no keep the verse the way that it is um so we've changed a few tiny little things but the majority of the vocal is still my sm7 vocal from home yeah fantastic so i mean we should clarify that's george daniel yeah

53:13who's been on the show a few times nice um both for the 1975 and with charlie and other people as well japanese house um and jack antonoff's been on um so it feels like part of our family nice no and they give you some sound advice there yeah i mean they are so fun to work with both of them like so they worked on just like they worked on she's the best they worked on she's the best they worked on cowboy cowboy ff jackson try meets world they're kind of all over the um right yeah but speaking of you know like sort of things feeling more kind of spontaneous and manic and whatever

53:49it's like having such unbelievably talented musicians in the room things just move so quick and they you know everything is turned on and ready to go and anyone can walk up to any instrument and it's like recording kind of thing and so the songs just get this like massive influx of life and and then you kind of like edit after the fact and and keep or lose some things but it's a really really inspiring way to way to work and also i mean i've never worked like this before

54:20but i would i would go home from the studio i'm usually there for like every single part of the process i would go home and come back in the morning and jack would be like oh i got um strings on cowboy i was like what i sent a video of like jack just like playing with yeah who knows what and i was like oh my god so cool this is wild but yeah you know he'll he'll like call up his like touring band that you know like the bleachers band basically and they'll come in and play on it and it's this like very very much it's like a living breathing thing that is kind of very

54:53collaborative with a bunch of people and it's amazing it's so fun to work that way so yeah let's stick back into the track and really hear all these elements yeah so this is like this was our first one before it was kind of sent to jack and rob and i had a lot of fun recording all these guitars and then we got into the studio at leland's house in la laurel vale and we recorded a lot of the like grand piano a lot of it was film uh recorded with our iphone mic just because i think it like the mic's really good but it has like such nice texture um like all these guitars

55:35those lines are so pretty and there's not a lot going on where i'm running like yeah this analog obsession brit free and cla guitars which is probably on every single guitar channel in this track um i remember rob recording this space i was like damn you know that really brought a lot of the almost like swag to to the beat and then play the piano walk down piano so yeah these were all i think recorded

56:10on my phone mic so straight into voice notes and then exactly you took that and then put that in the session exactly yeah yeah i remember troy told me that george like heard that and was like that is so beatles yeah it's like that's the greatest compliment i've ever ever had yeah the piano really

56:42it brought this whole last chorus together we're kind of running juno plug-in because yeah again like this was all in my bedroom at tro's house so don't have a lot of gear um yeah

57:20that's so pretty and so when jack added his bits he was building on top of this all of this yeah exactly so then he adds strings to that or he added strings he added a little like vocoder thing that he did yeah i mean there was a lot there's a sax oh there's a sax yes you're right

57:53so he really raided his uh contactless no fully i love that part that's

58:07this was george this little vocal pad thing

58:15it's even like i feel like they just added so much texture and it just added like so much right there's this i i didn't even know this was in here crazy vocoder thing going on

58:36amazing wow absolutely i had no idea that you can't even know that it's in there sometimes you know i think jack works really really well when he's like left alone um because we yap we we love to chit chat yeah so sometimes it's best that we separate and then he goes in and i get sent these like treats um but yeah i think the one thing that i felt with with this song and another song on the album called ff leaning into how kind of like bandy they feel

59:10that's something that's really new for me and at times a little bit scary for me you know i think that like there's a feeling that i'm always trying to crave i didn't want to make like i said this to them and to you i didn't want to make like boy music do you know what i mean like i it had to feel there had to be a little like wink to it almost and i think that they're like ooey gooey verse falsetto provides a little bit of that like kind of queerness to me where it starts to feel a little

59:42kind of like there's something going on there and then i wanted to add some synth stuff to kind of like feminize it in a way like i just didn't want it to feel um i still wanted it to to feel like me and i know that it feels like me when i want to like you know sort of like arch my back on stage and roll my head around and sing it and there was moments in the production where because i'm really kind of like pushing myself on this album there was moments where i didn't feel that and then then i would know okay something is off balance here where i need to bring in and so then like for

1:00:16example the the like pad thing that george added in the broken down chorus will you play that one more time yeah something like that really like softens it to me and brings it back to this really kind of like vulnerable queer place that has this like flavor that i just love you know and so i i wanted to kind of like find the right balance and then the last sort of step of the puzzle was this ultimate

1:00:46kind of like euphoria that i knew had to be a synth because i think a guitar solo or something like that would have again kind of like i guess in my head made it to i don't know boy rock boy music um and so there's this little synth lead that um i found on splice wow i chucked it in there it's like pitched up a bunch and the tempo is different whatever but um when something's right it's right

1:01:20yeah exactly like i remember we tried to we tried to beat it yeah you know tried to play things in and everything and nothing gave me that ooey gooey sensation the same way that this did some something about throwing something that electronic and out of place into this very organic bandy beautiful song with all this live instrumentation it took it to the place where i

1:01:55wanted it to land where there's this like again the same way that like party has this element of self-awareness or something like that so so does a song like this where i think it just um brings it into my world and into my kind of like taste and play it with everything from a little bit before

1:02:25that really like hit at home for me yeah yeah i could certainly hear one and it has that kind of nice magical heavenly quality that is kind of part of the song in a way and part of the sentiment

1:02:56you know that this person will emerge at some point no

1:03:08fantastic so that is cowboy we're going to take a quick break and the next song we're going to look at is canada dry running a growing business means doing all the things campaign things pipeline things support and follow-up things and somehow keeping track of all of it hubspot self-updating crm pulls in emails and meeting notes automatically keeping your records current and helping you see what to do next so you can focus on building demand winning deals and keeping customers coming back you know the

1:03:42things most worth doing learn more at hubspot.com in deepest jungle cartier's panther spies a wandering bird that circles the skies a lovebird lost and missing his mate is far from his path in lonely state dry your tears now there's a start follow my steps to heal your heart panther stalks through the leaves with silent grace through the power of scent she finds the trace behold two lovers reunite in the skies a

1:04:20most precious thrill sparkling in their eyes together forever they shine each day bound by the beauty of cartier the next song we're going to look at is canada dry but before we do we're going to give you another patron question from patreon william card says troy i've loved following the evolution of your sound over the last few albums in listening back it feels to me like you've taken different creative choices to change how you record and place your vocals in the mix both when you're a featured artist and on your

1:04:54own records i felt particularly like the first single pointed to yet another direction what creative conversations are happening with your producers to inform these different decisions that impact the final mix and the final recording well um i was a boy soprano as a kid that was like my thing was i was a boy who sang very high and then my my voice broke and changed as i hit puberty and it really shook me up like i know i was only 12 but i was like i need to take a break from music and figure myself out kind of

1:05:27thing and it really you know kind of threw me and then i think when i listen back to an album like blue neighborhood i was figuring out and still am how i like to sing and what my voice is kind of like capable of and as i get more and more comfortable i i like to try new things and um yeah i mean i'm just i'm just kind of like exploring and and learning and it's it's like a very fun part of the process

1:05:58for me i think another thing like we said that's changed the way that i'm singing or the melodies that i'm choosing is producing my own vocals i think that that's also been kind of like a big a big step for me but yeah now i kind of feel like i have a general sense of what i want something to feel like and then how to achieve that with with my voice and so you know in a song like she's the best i think singing these like beautiful melodies about these beautiful people in my life would have very quickly become corny and i was like i feel like this feels most genuine and honest and like not

1:06:37patronizing when it's spoken and and so that was kind of like the the direction for that same thing with party i think with a big dance track like that very very quickly singing over a dance track can become like kind of the edm that i heard growing up on the radio like on pop radio and those songs are amazing but it was not the vibe that i was that i was going for um and then now melodically you know when i when i'm like writing a melody i i want to surprise myself you you learn your instincts after a

1:07:07while and get maybe bored of them and even even co-writers you know like leland and i've worked together so long that i think when we're working together and he would say the same thing about me he'll sing a melody and i'm like that's amazing it's such a melody that we have you know have sort of like done before or explored before and same thing he would say about me where you know i would sing something and that's like such a troy melody you know and i think on this album it's definitely my most experimental album i i wanted to kind of like push myself and see what new worlds i could find in in my

1:07:45in my voice so then you get things like the first verse of cowboy like that super delicate like almost whispered falsetto there's like a couple of songs where i'm really singing out more than i maybe usually do um yeah i'm still finding it i hope that i keep finding it for the rest of my life yeah well and i think you can hear it in canada dry as well oh yeah i mean yeah this is a full falsetto chorus which is the track we're going to look at now so tide if you could give us a blast the last of the master that would be great

1:08:29summer and the passion of the heat i'm calling everybody to the street i'm laid out on the pavement losing track of the hour i'm making a scene i'm only getting harder you got what i need i'm going to wait too long come cool me down like one two three it is canada dry by troy savanne from she's the best such a sexy and sultry track i think

Origins of Canada Dry

1:09:18thank you um how did this one start this was the first session that my friend rob and i i think ever did together really yeah we've been friends like best friends for years probably like five years at this point and um we were like okay let's let's make some music and again i feel like i'm always listening to something i'm like damn i wish i made that and i was listening to the addison ray album at the time and we wanted to make a track that addison ray could sing on and we made we made this and

1:09:49it's it's still called addison ray um and we both thought it was you know good and i sent it to troy and i was like i really would like love to try and get this to someone to sing on and pitch it um and i think troy heard it and he was like why can't i sing on it like you know a singer he's upstairs it's me yeah again i'd never like sent a song to try being like you should sing on this you know

1:10:20we've always shared music but i didn't want to like force him into something so it was a really cool moment when he was like no i want this um and yeah this is this is our day one demo

1:10:35korg ms20

1:10:43drums need a better mix for sure yeah

1:11:02yeah i'm trying to think like what we've what we've got chop this break up

1:11:14some delay rc retro color yep done not too much but just wanted it yeah wanted to have that like again swagger and i think there's like nothing more cool than a break beat and is the break from a sample or is honestly probably a splice sample yeah yeah um i feel like i'm not very technical so i just try and like follow the the vibe of what i'm feeling and i would kind of want to get it down as quick as i can yeah so i'm

1:11:46just like blah blah blah and then rob is probably the guy who's kind of pushing me more to be like okay let's like you know design some sounds and and bring some not real production in but you know really make it our own yeah um yeah and i on this ms20 i think is the very first patch

1:12:08it's amazing

1:12:11and that like made the whole song

1:12:20so you had created a whole track with no vocal at all no but you'd got the track to a place that you were happy and you thought this has got a good structure we like the way it moves and now we just got to find the right person the right person yeah exactly and again i think making this i was like it's not for troy and it was always surprising when you when you wanted it and took it but i remember this really clearly i i got it and was in the same that room and i think this one was late at night though and the chorus was the first thing that that came and i love janet

1:12:56jackson so much and i thought to myself i can imagine a really thin slinky doubled maybe like quadrupled stack a falsetto vocal that would give me that ooey gooey feeling that i love so much like really make me want to arch my back um so then i got leland on facetime and i had some of the lyrics i had i think pull me closer and now we're getting this right and i want to sip your body like a canada dry

1:13:31i had and then leland being like the genius that he is he was like no it should be i want to sip your body till it's canada dry which i love and then in my head immediately this is the song about a hot canadian man um and it felt very much like block party to me so then the you know the verses are all about like summer you know sitting on the pavement kind of like drinking someone's got like a boom box of some sort or a pa system that's like playing this song and everyone's just kind of like

1:14:02bopping their head it's like it's got this real like you said like swagger to me that i just like fell in love with and i did a one of my gibberish vocal verses on it we listened to this version yeah for like three months before troy recorded any any words or vocals and we would dance and just feel so good

Polishing the final mix

1:14:24we went to i went to ibiza for my 30th birthday it's my first time going and this was the one that i wanted to listen to by the pool so even though it was the gibberish vocal i was like this is a vibe i want to see i was like this is i can't do it

1:14:56i was like this one you're talking about in the background you're going to be i had a big part of it i was like this one you've got to be i was like this one you've got to be you've got to be We hear the first chorus now.

1:15:30And then Leland came up with this timing change that I love so much. It's so nice, it's coming.

1:15:40Something about how punchy that is really, really felt very like Janet to me. Janet, yeah. And I was like, this is, this is sick. So then, okay, then, I mean, we lived with this gibberish version for ages, listened to it on holiday so much, like in the car, by the pool, whatever. So I knew that it was a vibe. And then we kind of sat on it for a while because I was very intimidated by trying to, the problem with doing the gibberish vocal is that then you fall in love with that, with that exact phrasing and stuff, because there's no limitation on trying to fit in what

1:16:15you're trying to say. It's just melodically what feels right. And now you have this puzzle piece of trying to fix, I guess, put the sentiment to this very kind of like rigid structure that you've created for yourself. And so it's a really intimidating thing. And finally, we got into the studio with Styles and Leland in LA. And we wrote what is now the song. Right. So this is where Tide now hits play and we're here.

1:16:47On this one. Styles also, I want to really mention this Kylie Arp. That's what he's labeled it. It's like absolutely was the cherry on top of this song. Now you hear that, you're like, oh, damn, this is Canada Dry by Troye Sivan. Styles is just like polished, you know, like absolutely polished.

1:17:35I feel like we listened to the demo and it's kind of like thuddy and a bit rough, which I think like peak Troye's interest again in the beginning because it wasn't so polished, but like this song, I think absolutely needed it. Yeah. You know, again, it's like silky and clean. Yeah. Play the lead into the second chorus because I love the way everything drops out. Yeah, you ask about like live, like that is a live choice, you know, where I'm like, I'm picturing performing that on stage, you know?

1:18:23And again, like I think there's something so powerful to me about like the music bringing out this side of me that like it kind of makes me feel like a superhero version of myself. You know, I think as somebody who has dreamt of being a pop star their entire lives, having the sort of like music feel like it could support the level of show that I would have only ever dreamt of putting on my entire life. You know, having like the dancers and the lights and stuff like that, I really am like, I feel like a kid in a candy shop in general in my life, getting to make the music videos that I make and whatever.

1:18:57And so it's like that kind of like informs the songwriting in a weird way where I'm like, oh, no, I want to like give myself something to live my like fantasy to, you know? Amazing. I mean, it seems to me that you are, you have been living out this fantasy for a long time, for most of your life in a way, but it's almost as if maybe you couldn't believe it before. And now you can actually think this is really happening. And now I'm, I'm actually in control of this. I'm the governor of my destiny.

1:19:28It's also this thing of not wanting to take up too much space. You know, I think like, like growing up in the closet, I think the natural, like kind of my most comfortable state is trying to get people to pay like as little attention to me as possible in my everyday life. Like not trying to draw too much attention to yourself, not trying to be too loud or whatever. And then I think something again through music, there's this like empowerment that happens where you really like kind of tune in to the thing that is making you, you know, so afraid you tune in and you realize that that is like kind of your like secret sauce.

1:20:05That is the thing that makes you special. And so amplifying that times a million and going at it really like hard, you know, I think that that was something that is really, really exciting to me. And then this feels like that, you know, a slinky, a high falsetto melody like that, that feels so kind of like femme. It feels so like powerful to me. Like I take a lot of great power from, from doing stuff like that. And yet the contrast is that it seems like quite a subtle, smooth track in many ways. No, it's not necessarily the obvious power move or, you know, which is why it's so powerful, I guess.

1:20:41Totally. Yeah. Anything else we should hear in the production? I feel like some fun things we did. Like I remember playing these pianos and like, I just watched the episode he did with Kevin Parker, Tame Impala. And like the song Patience, that piano was like fully the inspiration behind you, just like big verby piano. And like, I think it adds so much. If that's not in there, it's just like filling such a nice space.

1:21:14And where was that piano recorded? That was in my bedroom at Troy's house. Right. Yeah, exactly. And was that on the phone as well? No, no, sorry. That's us playing in, in with MIDI through plugging. Right, right. Yeah. I think like our contact grand piano, everything, everything in the box in the bedroom, you know, and then when we can, I think we did some more of this at synth temple. Um, what do we got here?

1:21:43Just a little like omni choir chords, Mr. Styles. And my voice is like a pad in this song somewhere. Really? Yeah. Tied. That's so nice. Let's find it. Yeah, that's it. That's you? That's me. Were you solo the Britney piece of me thing? The being pedigree. Oh, hell yeah.

1:22:09So this like outro thing is me kind of.

1:22:20Amazing. You know, the bridge of peace of me by Britney Spears? Not off the top of your head. Not off the top of your head. She does this Melodyne thing where she's basically just singing the one note and I'm pretty sure it's Bloodshyne Avant and then they, they draw in this melody. And I've always loved it. I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, how did they do that? And I was probably like 13 or something, you know? And so that was my little homage. And what are you doing there? What is there? Well, so it's, it happens once before where it's not, it's not Melodyne. It's just me saying. Very good. And then we repeated it.

1:23:03I can only imagine it's like Little Alta Boy, some Redux. Yeah. You know, big crusher.

1:23:20And it's interesting when you, you're referencing Britney on there, but also when it's not Melodyne, it sounds kind of like Janet or it's that kind of thing, isn't it? I'm a gay man, what can I say? Yes. I love it though. It's tapping into your nasty side. 100%. Yeah. This song is like, when it's playing, you're just like, you know, you're getting down to it. It's really nasty. We snuck it into the, we had a party to release Party and we snuck it into one of the DJ sets and it felt so good on the dance floor, which is amazing.

1:23:52Fantastic. We have got to move on and say goodbye, unfortunately. So maybe we could round up with another blast at the end of this track. And we have two more questions that we ask everyone who comes on the podcast that we'd like to ask. Cool. Thanks for having me! Thank you very much! You better get me stuck with me In a way that I can't describe grearden Get those eyes open for me what you want it right now inside. You need a nice cold drink, let it out.

1:24:23You better get those eyes open for me what you wants it, we'll be right in. You got a these eyes open for me how you want it right now inside. You get those eyes open for me what you want it right now inside. it is canada drive by troy savann from she's the best the last selection we're looking at today

Essential gear and closing thoughts

1:24:50but before we let you go troy and tide we have a couple of questions that we ask everyone who comes on the show um the first of which is a kind of tech question in a way uh what piece of kit has been essential to making this album do you think i spoke about it a lot my sm7 yes my sm7 it's lightweight you can take it basically anywhere with you and i mean everything goes in like a little dull but but then you can there's there's just like so much information in it feels like that you can end up with like a radio ready vocal you can end up with a beautiful sounding

1:25:25podcast um whatever you need i think it's just like such a a workhorse it's really tough i feel like i could throw it on the ground and it would be fine um it rolls around in my suitcase and i basically like don't leave the country without it anymore yeah fantastic and the other question we ask everyone is about advice whether you've learned in a thing that you'd want to share with other people either through your own experience or maybe somebody else said something that you kind of stood by and and has lasted you well i feel like i've kind of just learned that like i

1:26:01shouldn't i shouldn't worry too much i feel like all of these songs kind of just came from me being like okay i'm gonna wake up and sit in my bedroom and start making something and like without it i wouldn't have made that original demo um called if rush was dead yeah and i wouldn't have made candida dry after hearing the addison album and it's just i think i've really like after forcing myself to sit down and do something every single day like it's just paid off and i wouldn't be sitting here with three songs on on troy's album if i hadn't done that so like don't kind of stress i

1:26:36think it's more important to just do the thing rather than worrying about doing the thing yeah what about you troy yeah i think coming into making music professionally in the very beginning i thought that there was a way to do things and there's not like there's truly not a way to do things there is a million billion ways to do things and like i think that similar to what tide's saying it's like the way that that works i think is the way that it's where it feels the most inspired for you you know

1:27:07when it's like kind of just really genuinely coming um doesn't really matter like you know if you do it by yourself if you do it with other people it's almost like i've been i think i used to almost like want permission or approval or something like that from from the people around me and now i don't really feel that way and so if if something starts in the weirdest way as a voice member on my phone or you know just like recorded at home or whatever um or if it's like in a new spot that i've never sung

1:27:38before in my voice or whatever like or if it's spoken i think just like experimenting and trying things it's like that's what it's all about so i would say just like really try and tune in to yourself and and um like listen to yourself and make the thing that feels cool to you however you want to make it um do that all all the moments i love on this album things that i think you're doing that are like new yeah and and it's great because you're constantly pushing yourself forward and looking for

1:28:10something new that excites you and ignites and inspires you so yeah fantastic and and you've done it you know and here it is and she's the best thank you so much for your time thank you for coming in sharing this all with us um let's have one more song a kind of outro piece another selection from the album what do you want to go with oh everything loves so big it hurts i was gonna say that this is my favorite song on the album well i'm going to introduce it thanks again so good to speak to you both tired troy and here's the last selection then from she's the best this is love so big it hurts

1:28:42thank you for listening and in particular thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on patreon i'm just one part of the team that brings you 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

1:29:14or 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 back at home

1:29:52we're fiddling just Cookin' clean, boy, not my mind. Cause I can't sleep. I'm feeling just like I did last night. Turn and toss, cut my loss. Hear me start trying. And I can't tell you why. When I fucked up, get myself together. Oh, maybe that's why.

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