Rewind: Guster and Phoenix on Reinvention, Escaping Nostalgia, and the Strange Side of Pop

0:00 [SPEAKER_01]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are. [SPEAKER_01]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media. [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to another edition of Kyle Meredith with it's the interview series presented by WFPK at WFPK dot org Consequence in the consequence podcast now work things making you way here of course for checking us out Do hit that subscribe button if you're not already you'll get new interviews just like this one sent you away every single week You can grab a Spotify Apple podcast NPR [SPEAKER_02]: WFBK.org, consequence, YouTube for the video versions, anywhere you get your podcast from, you can subscribe to Kyle, Meredith with, please to give this series a rating, leave a review, wherever you're listening to watching from, those always help out so much.

1:00 [SPEAKER_02]: We've had some great guests on lately, Jane Seymour here, was just here, you know, Dr. Quinn, medicine woman, James Bond girl, all the stuff she's back at, well, she's back in season five in the A. Corne TV series called Harry Wilde. [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about that. [SPEAKER_02]: uh... rooper grints of very potter fame along with uh... sidey harla and uh... and hanna burrow home dropped in to talk about the uh... the new shutter horror film body horror film called nightborne we hung out with common tim robins and the cast of season three of silo on apple tv octavia spencer and hanna whadding him were also here they're starring in a show called writer die on prime video curtain vile kevin morby tourie amaz jane kasmiric just an example of what you get

1:42 [SPEAKER_02]: when you subscribe to the Kyle Meredith with podcast and that's me Kyle Meredith today we're looking back at a special rewind episode with Ryan Miller of Guster and Tomas Mars from Phoenix the reason why I put them together it's sort of two conversations about bands [SPEAKER_02]: refusing to let a familiar sound become a comfortable trap if you want to put it that way.

2:05 [SPEAKER_02]: Fact out we're going to start here in just a few moments with my conversation with Guster's Ryan Miller from back in 2016. [SPEAKER_02]: He was back at they were releasing ever motion and we talked about moving beyond 90s nostalgia and reinventing the band through [SPEAKER_02]: through new instruments, studio experimentation, and then in just a bit with part two with Phoenix's Thomas Mars to Musk for you French listeners.

2:29 [SPEAKER_02]: From 2017, he was talking about how Italian pop and cryptic English and Bowie and Prince and getting boarded with his own voice shaped at Album Tiamo, both arrived at a similar place, making pop music that sounded joyful on the surface while [SPEAKER_02]: You know something stranger was was moving underneath so let's get started part one of this rewind episode from 2016 It's my conversation with with Ryan from Guster Walsh who should point out There was a new technology that everybody was sort of curious about about VR and AR and we had a 360 camera [SPEAKER_02]: and we thought wouldn't it be interesting to shoot this interview in 360 video, which no, it was not interesting because if you see the video on YouTube, it's me and him sitting at a table in a room and you can look around the room and there's nothing else happening in the room but we're sitting in a table so you'll, you needed that context anyway for some of the jokes that will happen here.

3:26 [SPEAKER_02]: So let's do this part one of this special rewind episode. [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Meredith with Ryan from [SPEAKER_03]: Am I in 3D right now? [SPEAKER_03]: You're not 3D, you're just in their world. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I mean, they're wearing goggles. [SPEAKER_02]: They're in your world. [SPEAKER_03]: They're wearing the goggles.

3:39 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you've got the goggles. [SPEAKER_02]: The Oculus. [SPEAKER_02]: See, about how ridiculous you look right now. [SPEAKER_03]: But they can't go anywhere because that's stationary. [SPEAKER_03]: They can't walk around me. [SPEAKER_03]: They can only look around. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can look around.

3:50 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, but there's really nothing. [SPEAKER_02]: And go ahead and look around because it's very, uh. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we'll make it interesting for you here in just a minute. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Or in the future, which would technically, I guess we're in the future.

4:02 [SPEAKER_02]: Listen, I've got you new record here on a promo CD as I hold it. [SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I don't even know they still made CDs Ever motion, that's right. [SPEAKER_02]: They still still all those new artwork with this one. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of Wow, I'm sorry. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how the actual experiment is it's a fun record.

4:18 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a really fun record fun Yeah, cool. [SPEAKER_02]: It's an extremely fun record the melodies are everywhere. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm in love with it I'm not kidding. [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's a great record. [SPEAKER_02]: I know a lot of the story that you've talked about is has a lot to with Richard Swift [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, one of my all-time favorite producers.

4:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Really? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's what he's awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: And the stamp he puts on things. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And from what I've learned about it, like the quickness versus the older stuff that you guys have done, the other records like how you bet what four weeks per second year, something to research.

4:46 [SPEAKER_03]: My research. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a lot of work every week every week. [SPEAKER_02]: You talk to someone you don't have to talk Any by the way. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna tell you all of the answers Very awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, well, you know all the stuff you know all my all my quotes No, I appreciate it.

5:00 [SPEAKER_03]: I had to do an interview not to not to circumvent this But I had to interview somebody for the first time for this. [SPEAKER_03]: I do film component So I had an interview another film composer and I got really nervous And I kind of had this moment where I was like real had real empathy for what you're doing was like [SPEAKER_03]: How much do I learn about someone before because part of it's just like I want to have a discussion right but I also want to ask all the questions that you have to ask So I have now this was one of the first times I sat down with someone since then and I have this whole other appreciation for you and you're like [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I've already read all this stuff, so now I'm gonna take it further and I'm like, wow, it takes a lot of work.

5:31 [SPEAKER_03]: Do you know what ruins you though? [SPEAKER_02]: I wish I could study for any conversation that I have ever. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you mean in real life, I wish you come in and you know all that stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: I've got all this because otherwise you know, it takes out, you know, what doesn't take out the awkward moments, this is where the awkward moments.

5:46 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. [SPEAKER_03]: That's like if you go on a date, like do you like, do you like go find them out on internet or do you just play everything? [SPEAKER_03]: Or do you do it and then pretend not to? [SPEAKER_02]: I used to do it when I was young, like my first few girlfriends, and we're talking like middle school and stuff like that.

6:00 [SPEAKER_02]: Like I would write down everything that I want to ask. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: And then that would be like, hey, how are you? [SPEAKER_02]: And just go down. [SPEAKER_03]: And then it'd be done when there's like, I'm going to go, bye. [SPEAKER_03]: Right, there's like a flow chart.

6:11 [SPEAKER_03]: yes you go here but that but now look at your job so that you've obviously you've obviously ended up in the right place sorry let's try that to do that because it's still not 3D no it's not 3D we're not gonna call it a call 3D yeah it's so much more maybe we'll do VR in VR it doesn't sound as good it's not as fun anyway [SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, that's what I was wondering though because you know for a band that's been doing as long as you guys have and and you've always played around with your sound like you've always done that But this seems like this is one of the biggest jumps the departures as a critic would say like do you do that?

6:47 [SPEAKER_02]: because you're just looking to mix things up, do you do that because, again, as a band for a long time, you're thinking, oh, do I need to say relevant to the kids or whatever it is? [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, is any of that part of the conversation? [SPEAKER_03]: I think that drive, you know, if the question is what's driving us to like, well, I think the main thing is to be better in our jobs and ultimately all these sort of sonic departures, you know, that [SPEAKER_03]: how we evolve, you know, are ultimately to serve the music.

7:16 [SPEAKER_03]: So if it doesn't serve, you know, we feel like we're writing songs, we've always written pop songs, even on our first couple records, which I don't really like. [SPEAKER_03]: They were still songs in the way that these are songs, you can sit down and play them, there's a melody, there's a lyric and there's chords and you can sing them.

7:29 [SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's also just like we're just... [SPEAKER_02]: interested in stuff, you know, like, oh, wow, we're really, we're like, yeah, everyone should be, I guess it's because like, that sounds really normal for you to say that, but that's not always the case with every band. [SPEAKER_03]: No, and some bands do it, and then some bands do it, and then they lose people, you know, like my sweet spot for Wilco is not now, right?

7:55 [SPEAKER_03]: It was Yankee, it was summer teeth, you know, it was that was my era and they [SPEAKER_03]: And I respect that even though that that music doesn't touch my heart as much as it or to talk about the jacket, you know, here we are and like, you know, the record, what was it they did with Z. Yeah, yeah.

8:16 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean that for me was like it hit me so hard and I'm really and like fan of the band still saw the boner loose lost my mind and I like where they're going but like for me like and I'm like and I don't want them to make that record again so but I appreciate that they're going on all these kind of adventures too and I think it's like [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's an endemic of any artist that just even wants to make something you're like I want to learn how to do something and then I want to yeah I just want to I think we want to keep going so you've got to deal with your own fans like that though And especially knowing how you feel in those situations But for a band who has a fan base in the way you guys do and you have one of those rabbit fan base that will stick through you

8:55 [SPEAKER_02]: and tell you when they don't like something. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, although this era has like, once we started with acoustic guitars in Bongo, and that was a thing, and it really was. [SPEAKER_03]: Visually, it was a thing, sonically, it was a thing, it affected our writing and everything, and when we stopped doing that, that was like the big seismic shift and a hate using this metaphor, but it's like when Dylan plugged in his guitar for our fans, like the boom goes, and Brian just like, he wanted to have, [SPEAKER_03]: He was listening to talking heads in R.A., I mean, I just want to have a backbeat man, I can't do that with this, and so that for us was our big sort of break, and when we lost our sort of purists fans, I think at that, and then the people since then, generally, are now into it because of the adventure, and they're just like, oh, I like that you guys do this, and kind of dwindle them down.

9:45 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and then, but, you know, in a lot of ways, we got a lot of people, like, [SPEAKER_03]: Swift hates bongo's like didn't want to put any bongos like there's no way he would have ever Listen to our band brook for their band listen, you know, and if we had had bongo so like yeah We lost a lot of people.

10:01 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we lost some people, but we also bring some people into the fold So it's sort of it sort of works itself out, but yeah, I think the band I think the fans that are with us at this point like 25 years in are in for the journey of the thing and and we also you know [SPEAKER_03]: We try and honor that and that we're not making an electronic instrumental record and we'll be right back right after this Well, come back.

10:27 [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle here with Ryan Miller of Guster although when you first hear a simple machine, which was kind of the you know the first thing that I heard of the record like [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's Guster. [SPEAKER_03]: Right, but in the context like we had a song of, I think it was easy, easy, wonderful that was, do what you want that had a synth bass line.

10:42 [SPEAKER_03]: It was sort of like us playing with these textures, so, and, you know, so, and also, I don't know, like, I grew up on New Order and the QR and Smiths and the Peshmoads. [SPEAKER_03]: So to me, these like, sort of, synthy textures aren't foreign. [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't like, oh, what is this keyboard?

10:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's just, again, that mindset you have of a band, it's the idea of a band, which [SPEAKER_02]: Whether one of your not is basically every band is stamped in an era in some of you know when they first become famous That kid was in college at that time. [SPEAKER_02]: No, that's your era.

11:13 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so it's having to deal with all that so you know when you hear it It's like and for me again cool. [SPEAKER_02]: I love when a band does I know they take it so it's not for me, but I know that something you guys have to deal with But that's and to answer your question why do we keep doing?

11:25 [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's us clawing and scratching it not being stuck as [SPEAKER_03]: a 90s band or a 2000s band, you know, because we don't want to be an nostalgia band. [SPEAKER_03]: We don't want it to be just about the time when you made out in the back of your car and lust and gone forever, which is great.

11:41 [SPEAKER_03]: And I celebrate that because I'm a fan of bands, hands me saying about Wilcoe or Z, you know, about summer teeth or Z, like those records, but we also are trying really hard to make songs that can slot into this our set and our career that feel like, oh, [SPEAKER_03]: right and it's like wow this is cool and now you're kind of in on this journey with us and that's what we're that's really why we're still a band like because if we didn't do this I wouldn't be here we'd made the same record four times and everybody would like okay that sucks that's down I'm going home that's it or just play me that record that I liked in 1999 so you know the varying degrees of success that's what we're hoping to do every time

12:23 [SPEAKER_02]: you didn't become Bachman Turner overdrive. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't want to bash. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, a lot of bands on the third of my time. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right. [SPEAKER_03]: About the bands that don't do this, but it's hard. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I get it. [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, but you know, the other part of your fans, too.

12:36 [SPEAKER_02]: And I probably could have done the research on it. [SPEAKER_02]: If this one of those points where I didn't on purpose, right? [SPEAKER_03]: That's great. [SPEAKER_02]: So going through your Twitter feed, I find one that is hilarious. [SPEAKER_02]: First, that it happens second that you retweeted it when the guys like, [SPEAKER_02]: I love going to the guster show and I'm so much fun and then they get up there and start doing their god songs, and I don't love them anymore.

12:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Now that's something that is always been part of a conversation about guster. [SPEAKER_02]: Like if you didn't know guster, it's like, wait, are they Christian parents? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not a Christian parents. [SPEAKER_00]: I love that. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's always been a thing because when I go back to least songs, it's not, no.

13:06 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like you're not a Christian being, but there's always been something there about that. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, because it's like, you know, there's a lot, there's like god talk and some of these, like there's a fact weird just [SPEAKER_03]: rehearsing us an old song we're gonna try and play all the way up to heaven and like we have a couple of these songs and kind of deal like say the word Jesus talk about got you know talk about heaven but it's always pretty like sly and there's usually another like angle to it if you care to look and some people don't which is fine you know I'm not here to tell you how to interpret anything but [SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's part of why it comes from.

13:40 [SPEAKER_03]: And then it's just, I think it's hilarious because it's re-founding members of all Jewish. [SPEAKER_03]: We all had Barn Misfits. [SPEAKER_02]: Well see, I found that part, and that's why it's all okay. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just like whatever you want, man. [SPEAKER_03]: If you think that this is like a Christian band, then you're welcome to it.

13:56 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I don't, it's fine, but I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's a lot of misconceptions about our band. [SPEAKER_02]: When did you find that you were first having to deal with that side of things like that? [SPEAKER_03]: I think there was that record. [SPEAKER_03]: It was either one or it was, it was, it was, it was easy, wonderful.

14:09 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry, I can't even keep the records. [SPEAKER_03]: It's only the seven, but like there was two songs about Jesus on it and they're like, and they're pretty, and they're, they're not, if, on first glance, they're kind of like, super pro, like, one's called Stay With Me Jesus, and it's like, [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so you hear that and it's sort of, but there's another interpretation, probably, that I was putting in there, so I think that's where it came from.

14:31 [SPEAKER_02]: So to go a little bit deeper on that didn't for you when you're writing that kind of stuff, and so, okay, we've established you're not a Christian band. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That's one thing. [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe. [SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, like you don't mind getting...

14:45 [SPEAKER_02]: spiritual or whatever it is you song like but and you have when you put that out there of course it's always the thing talking about fan bases as we are right now like putting that out there and saying what are you going to do with that is that going to upset you or like yeah you know well I mean I think ultimately and I'm finding this in so many things and I don't know this is like [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is so pretentious, but the artist journey, whatever that means to you like that's something as like a 43-year-old man who's like trying a lot of things I think about this stuff a lot, and I think What you mean the ban journey for now?

15:20 [SPEAKER_03]: That's a different conversation happy to have that conversation too [SPEAKER_03]: It's all about, you know, you've got to be able to wrap everything that you do. [SPEAKER_03]: And then hopefully, if you can stand behind it and it's not cynical, then people will fall in line. [SPEAKER_03]: But ultimately, that's your only goal as a musician, as a painter, as any kind of artist, is just to make something you believe in.

15:42 [SPEAKER_03]: And if people can come in underneath the tent that you're building, then that's great. [SPEAKER_03]: And if they can't, you still have the integrity of knowing that you made something that you're proud of. [SPEAKER_03]: that's always been our thing is like can we stand behind this and you know we keep in mind where we came from and well we really we've always had a melody as part of it arrangements kind of a cool thing we never talked about groove in the first half of our band which is probably why I don't like our band from the first couple records because [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that was a different interview where you were talking about if you could tell one of your self like they all sort of Marvin Gaye, or you know, the velvet underground or something.

16:16 [SPEAKER_03]: But so yeah, so I think we ultimately are trying to please, in there's four of us in this band and so like finding that venn diagram where we can all stand behind it and be like we're proud of this. [SPEAKER_03]: that's literally like 95% of the battle and then hoping that we've done something that other people can appreciate but then if they don't it's out of your control because you've done everything you can do to make something great that you love that isn't produced from the cynical place of like well I think they want to do this I don't really like it but I think that's what they want and that can work [SPEAKER_03]: for selling, and this isn't selling or selling or selling or selling or selling, but it's like, but then you're not making music or art from a real place.

16:55 [SPEAKER_03]: You're moving, making it from some kind of, and I don't even know how to, I mean, I know how to do that, but I just don't think I could do it convincingly. [SPEAKER_03]: So I always think that, yeah, we just try and do something that makes us laugh or that makes us, you know, gets us off on some level, and it's like, hopefully it'll work.

17:10 [SPEAKER_03]: And so far, [SPEAKER_03]: Even this is like, oh, cool. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, good words. [SPEAKER_02]: I was working for some people, you know, it's since we're on the topics not to use at a dinner party with religion. [SPEAKER_02]: When I look this, it's going through the lyrics and I wonder, like, is this a political record?

17:29 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, no, not over. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't like that. [SPEAKER_03]: So I run through just like I like where you're going with this, though. [SPEAKER_02]: I like how you do a few of these, uh, the song endlessly, um, no, that's not it. [SPEAKER_02]: Doing it by myself, that's where it starts.

17:39 [SPEAKER_02]: The game is fixed, now the confess to their crime, simple machine, wise up scare, crow, this is treason, uh, gangway swinging with my fish, shouting out with these lungs, and it is just what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: which seems to really go down the rabbit hole with that with presidents and thieves on thrones.

17:53 [SPEAKER_02]: I do know that when a writer is writing, especially a lyricist, songwriter, and you're writing in a short amount of time, themes will just... [SPEAKER_02]: pile on one theme may pile on over a lot of times, but it is it's kind of interesting to go down through this record and of course here we are in 2016 and it seems politics is you know what I'm talking about anyway and like do you put a political record out there or is it just how it lined up?

18:18 [SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean I think theoretically there's two things one. [SPEAKER_03]: to speak to this one as I've never said out even though I've always wanted to to write a record about something like this is it's not going to be about this or even like a lot of times just the way that I write and I've written you know the vast majority of the lyrics is like melody is first.

18:39 [SPEAKER_03]: I'll spit out a word, and I'm like, oh, that's cool. [SPEAKER_03]: And then I kind of reverse engineer it to make the title make sense or these little glues. [SPEAKER_03]: And this is actually how I found out the David Burton, right? [SPEAKER_03]: To music too, which made me really happy, where he just is like, blood, blood, blood, blood, blood, blood, and he's like, oh, blind.

18:55 [SPEAKER_03]: And then he's either reverse engineer. [SPEAKER_03]: So I'll do all this, and then it has to fit the mill. [SPEAKER_03]: He's got to sound good and all the stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: And then I'll be like, oh, I think this song is kind of about this. [SPEAKER_03]: And then we'll do all this, and then the lyric, and then it'll come together, and then I'll look, [SPEAKER_03]: Well, what is this record of that?

19:10 [SPEAKER_03]: And so, yeah, I mean as a thinking person who's like, you know, definitely there was like easy, wonderful, and getting it up on the sender is more overtly political stuff, but I'm engaged on it in a, like, an emotional level, like sort of politics. [SPEAKER_03]: I would think, but, [SPEAKER_03]: My favorite part of putting on is record is like finding smart journalists or intelligent people that are like, I know, 3D where are you?

19:40 [SPEAKER_03]: Look over there. [SPEAKER_03]: But who are like, oh, I seize the, and I sense this thing. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, oh, that's super cool because maybe you're, maybe that's your interpretation until you disagree with or maybe you're even right and I didn't even know when I was doing it.

19:54 [SPEAKER_02]: So I have you had that moment, and I guess you, you were saying you had like when you looked back on a song, maybe even an older song, [SPEAKER_02]: only cow. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like I was totally writing about that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, didn't even realize it. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, I mean, the only thing lyrics that I try and when I'm thinking about this is I try because we have this stated goal of writing these sort of classic pop songs is not trying to write something [SPEAKER_03]: You know that I wish I like that's why I like to religion as a thing because that's pretty like indelible That's in the thing and relationships and relationships to power and relationship to yourself like I I felt like

20:32 [SPEAKER_03]: early on these melodies were very like kind of, you know, poppy and not throw away, but I'm like, oh, well, if this, if more a sea can go, if it's a ton, ton, truck, cause the both of us, like, if that were different lyric, it wouldn't have that type of concept. [SPEAKER_02]: It's great when you first really heard that lyric, by the way, the first, like, because the melody stands out, you're right, in that song, and I remember the first few times, the melody stands out and you're not even thinking about what he's saying.

20:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: It was like, [SPEAKER_03]: Seconds of ending the color of a no, I know it's serious John Marseille to do so it's just like Yeah, so I think part of it was I would really wanted to write write about real stuff and not be afraid of Being too revealing or being too dark knowing that it wasn't going to be one of those things that hit people over the head of just like [SPEAKER_03]: this morose thing and that would help ground the stuff ground the song so we literally I think maybe subconsciously or overtly that I'm always attracted to sort of these darker places because for whatever reason I feel like it balances out what can be kind of really pretty happy poppy song well as a fan that's where it really gets fun because it's one thing just to have a good pop song and you listen to it and you get your you have your way with it and then it's done you know

21:48 [SPEAKER_02]: But when you get the, you know, when it's onion skin and you have a nice and everything you get the thing to do like I love this record and that's one of the reasons why it because it first it's just a really great pop record right and then these lyrics which by the way I brought up endlessly and I had nothing to do with that it was just I love the lyric.

22:03 [SPEAKER_02]: I tried to take your picture and you covered your eyes. [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's so much image outside of the face. [SPEAKER_02]: With that, it's a good record. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, there's some boy girl stuff in there that was really real to me. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think my wife is a writer.

22:20 [SPEAKER_03]: And she kept a blog or did something publicly and was sort of talking about some of our interpersonal stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, hey, man, don't put that out of this. [SPEAKER_03]: You wrote an entire breakup record about me, I'm like, oh yeah, I think I think on the point like you got a few more posts out there to even begin to equal.

22:39 [SPEAKER_03]: So like, you know, I will mine the real life for this stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Suffer for your art and we benefit. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I thank you, Ryan. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love this record. [SPEAKER_02]: Ever motion, it's out there.

22:54 [SPEAKER_02]: You've been hanging around. [SPEAKER_03]: You really didn't do much with the with our opportunity. [SPEAKER_02]: No, but now you're going to play something for them. [SPEAKER_03]: Just keep looking around. [SPEAKER_03]: He's gonna be doing it. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just gonna be here. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just gonna be like this.

23:06 [SPEAKER_02]: The whole time. [SPEAKER_02]: The whole time. [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll be right back, right after this. [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back. [SPEAKER_02]: All right, it's time for part two of this special rewind episode. [SPEAKER_02]: As I mentioned, my conversation with Tomas Mars from Phoenix was back in 2017.

23:22 [SPEAKER_02]: The band had hold themselves up at a museum slash concert hall in Paris to create that record at Tiamo and we got to speak about how the album ended up [SPEAKER_02]: dance really shine and writing about love and and how they were even simultaneously at that moment scoring a movie. [SPEAKER_02]: This is part two of a special rewind episode.

23:39 [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Meredith with Tomas Mars of Phoenix. [SPEAKER_02]: Good. [SPEAKER_02]: How are you? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited about this record. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I would like to thank you for the dance party that you record inside the last night of my living room.

23:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a joyful. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a joyful record. [SPEAKER_02]: I guess I was reading one of your bandmates calling it music for an Italian disco, which I thought was pretty spot on for some of the record. [SPEAKER_02]: And it kind of got me thinking, because I read the backstory on how you guys wrote this record about getting the room upstairs in the museum and kind of jamming it out.

24:12 [SPEAKER_02]: But were you looking for a certain sound? [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, do you guys ever go on a quest for a sound before you start the record? [SPEAKER_00]: We surround ourselves with, you know, the, I guess maybe the only decision we make because it's a lot of the unconscious that's working when it's before us.

24:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And we like the chemistry between the, we don't really come in the studio with material. [SPEAKER_00]: So the, the one decision we make is we pick our favorite sort of like a called our palette of instruments that we, we like and that [SPEAKER_00]: That we think we can use on the record, but then there's a lot of lurking and and Things that happen sometimes the keyboard is just a foot away Well the guitar is closer and that's the reason why that was my guitar is that simple So yeah, the only decision we make is this color palette and and I think we try to impose ourselves limits [SPEAKER_00]: because today is really you know that when we started making records they were a lot of limits it was really expensive to go in a studio to record it was really so there was time there was money there was they were only a few instruments that we could play with today we

25:24 [SPEAKER_00]: We spent three years in a studio and we have all these instruments on a computer or all right there and it can be overwhelming and it could be counter or productive. [SPEAKER_00]: It can you can get lost in the mass firm of, you know, possibilities. [SPEAKER_00]: So. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, well, I think we just try to set up a frame when we start.

25:46 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a formula that seems to work for you all. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think maybe it explains also why don't less spend today because there are so many possibilities and there are so much you can do on one computer that it's in favor of one person who knows, you know, does a lot of it is not this [SPEAKER_00]: jamming creative type of thing.

26:11 [SPEAKER_00]: It's mostly a cell. [SPEAKER_00]: It's mostly a solo activity. [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I think that helps us being formed, that helps us also write songs. [SPEAKER_02]: And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and as I'm kind of picking up what I can on this record, there seems to be a strong theme about love in various different ways.

26:28 [SPEAKER_02]: which, you know, is interesting because that's of course probably the main theme of rock and roll and most songs throughout the decades and centuries even. [SPEAKER_02]: So when you're going into think, you know, I'm writing about love, do you try to find a new angle or or you just let it come to you?

26:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I don't mind that it's the same story over and over. [SPEAKER_00]: I just want to tell it in a new way each time. [SPEAKER_00]: That's enough for me to find interest in and just how to tell that story. [SPEAKER_00]: I think on this record that there was a lot of influences that came from Italy, not only things that you can hear, but also in terms of how point the sluture of artistic and [SPEAKER_00]: mogul is the person who wrote the lyrics and he always had a very simple idea he would use common themes usually love relationships and but there's always one small twist that makes it you know it's that creates just enough of a change so that suddenly you see the whole thing through a different angle

27:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we are looking for something like that for just a slight distortion that would allow us to revisit these things. [SPEAKER_00]: And then I think then we'll, you know, we're bad at making. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't really come up with things before we write together or we don't really write.

28:00 [SPEAKER_00]: our good with statements and songs that are easily politically driven or it's usually just more sort of a process of just the four of us so we had to juggle with that a little bit we because we didn't want to change that and somehow it felt like the record has some of it but not on the surface so it was a I think it was a new record for us in that sense that [SPEAKER_00]: all the things came, you know, changed enough so that it felt like we're all rewriting a different type of record.

28:34 [SPEAKER_02]: I guess the language thing gives you license. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, your French are singing in English and I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: It does it allow you to go after words and phrases because I hear things from you that I don't think most American artists would ever even think to use and you go for it.

28:51 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm glad. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the point when we started singing in English, you know, in our own country, they sort of it as a trail. [SPEAKER_00]: They sort of it as they want to be American, they all they want to be, but if the opposite, you know, we'll not sing in English to be authentic or to try to create American folk songs or what we'll train it is to [SPEAKER_00]: come up with our own language ultimately, and we like the flows, we like the unfamiliar territories, you know, and the fact that, well, French and we sing in English is already enough to create this strange awkward language.

29:30 [SPEAKER_00]: So, no, I'm glad you, you, I'm glad you still cryptic, and I find us a look, there's more charm in the confusion or in the cryptic aspect of the music and the lyrics. [SPEAKER_00]: than just something straightforward and at least for us. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if Ez for a fan, it makes it a whole lot of fun, almost like, you know, a puzzle piece.

29:51 [SPEAKER_02]: It's been turned upside down or something. [SPEAKER_00]: It's, yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, it does a lot of even in movies when I see points from Fellini when he was making his movies, you know, he lived in Rome, he could have shot them right down Rome, but somehow he wanted to shoot these movies.

30:08 [SPEAKER_00]: in a studio line right next to it because we needed a distance, we needed things to look not as real, you know, just slightly off, I know, perfect it that for [SPEAKER_00]: many flies were charged for his full metal jacket, he was also a studio movie and it wasn't because it was purely an artistically driven for it to look like a fantasy and to not to be real, to be almost fake and wrong.

30:38 [SPEAKER_00]: So that was the appeal for us on this record even more than on the previous one. [SPEAKER_00]: using all these different languages and missing out with them. [SPEAKER_02]: Speaking of scoring movies, you guys were scoring a movie too. [SPEAKER_02]: Were you doing it at the same time or did you do that afterward?

30:56 [SPEAKER_00]: We did it towards the end, but it was like we said it was really fun for us because we were so into, you know, we were at a moment during the album where we heard the songs so much that in the complex while we were writing songs there was also a venue and a movie theater. [SPEAKER_00]: So, few would send us [SPEAKER_00]: Reels and clips from the movie and we would go in the movie see it on and look at them and and just go back and write Things really quickly because we had way more limits than we had on our record You know she knew exactly which we wanted and we [SPEAKER_00]: We only used very few instruments and so yeah, it happened quickly another thing that was like recess a bit was that when we would get bored at 4 or 5 p.m. And yeah, so then we'd just peek inside the venue at the band sound checking.

31:50 [SPEAKER_00]: There was a place you could go and no one would see you and you would just peek at all the sound check and just add a glimpse of what it would feel like to be on tour soon. [SPEAKER_00]: and see a lot of bands, and it felt like we were on a music festival, so yeah, there was that felt like we said too.

32:14 [SPEAKER_02]: It all sounds like a really cool way to make a record, the entire experience and it has made for a cool record. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like I said, I love it and had a great dance party last night and, you know, before I get out of here, speak with that, Jay Boy, what you're doing with your voice is so fun because it sounds almost like this character, almost like a bit glam and a little bit feminine like you're dancing in front of a mirror, whatever the case it is, the delivery is really fun.

32:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I got bored with my voice and the more record we do, the more I try to change it and I try to mess up with it and In getting character and then I don't know also if you know sometimes you feel encouraged by I know that the yellow well prints and the bowie and all the [SPEAKER_00]: music I can't say.

33:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, all these things you couldn't watch of Prince Epiod Online, all these music videos and all these TV shows from David Bowie from Germany. [SPEAKER_00]: You could see them online. [SPEAKER_00]: And they were in character, and they were messing up with their... [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was around that time that we started to mess even more with the sounds and also I could see in my friends, I could see you know like a little glimpse and it was just a [SPEAKER_00]: I could see the eyes when I would change my voice and I could see an interest that they encouraged me to go that direction.

33:38 [SPEAKER_00]: The same way that Chris once has a guitar pedal that simulating Japanese people talking. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a really awkward pedal, but suddenly your sounds become as if someone was talking Japanese. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's really interesting, it's on the record here on the alphabet, so there will be little tricks to mess up with instruments.

34:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And so they sound like something else. [SPEAKER_00]: And we love that confusion that the guitar sounds like a synth. [SPEAKER_00]: A drum machine sounds like a... [SPEAKER_00]: You know, to mess up with all the perception of music is humiliating in the studio too. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, again, I love how it turned out, so thanks for the music, good luck on this year, and thanks for the interview today.

34:24 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: There you go, my thanks to Thomas Phoenix from Ryan Auguster, the NTU for checking out the episode. [SPEAKER_02]: Do hit that subscribe button before you get out of here, if you're not already. [SPEAKER_02]: You'll get new interviews just like this one sitting your way every single week.

34:38 [SPEAKER_02]: You can grab a Spotify Apple podcast NPR WFPK dot org Consequence YouTube for the video versions anywhere you get your podcast from you can subscribe to Kyle Meredith with please Give this series a rating Leave her review wherever you're listing from [SPEAKER_02]: Now to that, you're going to head over to wfpk.org, where I do a show.

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