Mike Elizondo (Part 1)

This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You can visit the Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and today I'm playing along with Mike Elizondo. Part one.

Hi, welcome to the show.

I'm Nora.

This is Sarah Oda.

Welcome to our show.

We have another amazing two-parter, had to be a two-parter.

Oh, yeah. We cover a lot of ground.

And we wanted to just, you know, share, split the love over a couple weeks. Michael Elizondo is a Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, bass player, and a musician who's had his hand in, like, an incredible amount of music over the years. He's worked with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Carrie Underwood, Mary J. Blige, Fiona Apple.

John Batiste, Madison Cunningham, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and so many more.

He's pretty awesome.

Yeah.

We first met on a Beach Boys tribute show he was MDing a few years back, and we kept in touch, and this was.

Just a joy.

He's a real chameleon.

Yeah, we actually got together the day before this episode to write a song together, and so you'll hear more about that, as well as we cover a few songs from his catalog.

Very fun choices, I might say.

Unexpected. Yes.

But stick around for next week as well because we'll do part two next week and you can check.

That out also.

Enjoy.

Michael Elizondo. Let's get it crunk up.

On that funnel.

In this dancery We got y'all open Now you're floating So you've got to dance for me Don't need no hateration Holleration In.

This dancery Let's get.

Epiculating While you're waiting.

So just dance for me Come on everybody get on up Cause you know we got to get it crunk.

Noah J is in the spot tonight.

And I'm going.

To make you feel all right.

Come on, baby, just party with me. Let it loose and let your body feel. Leave your situations at the door. So when you step inside, jump on the floor.

Let's get it crunk up. Won't have fun, I'm on it In this dance of.

Me We got you open, now you floatin' So you gots to dance for me No need no hateration, holleration In this dance of me Let's get it percolatin' While you waitin' on me.

It's only gonna be just a matter of time Before you get.

Loose and start to lose your mind Pop a drink, go ahead and rock your ice Cause we're celebrating normal drama in our lives Everybody's jumpin' Go ahead and twist your back, get body bumpin'..

I told you to leave your situations at the door.

So grab someone and get your ass on the dance floor. Oh, hateration, holleration in this dancery. Let's get it puckering while you're waiting.

We don't need no haters.

Just try to love. We just want you to have a good time.

No more drama in your life.

Work real hard to make a dime.

If you got beef, you're probably not mine.

Leave all that BS outside.

We're gonna celebrate all night.

Let's have fun tonight. No fights.

Turn the drain back up real high.

Make you dance all night. And I've got some real heat for you this time.

Doesn't matter if you're white or black. Let's get drunk cause Mary's back.

Let's get drunk.

Have fun, have fun, have fun in this dancery. We got y'all.

Open, now you're floating, so you gots to dance for me. Don't need no hateration, holleration in this dancery. Let's get it percolating while you're waiting, so just dance for me.

Oh, my God.

You sound so good.

That was fun.

Sounds so good. It's cool to hear it reinterpreted through your sensibilities.

Very reinterpreted.

Oh, my God.

That was so fun.

Yeah. Awesome. I think that might be the first time I've ever performed that song.

Really?

Yeah.

Definitely. It might be the first time it's been done on some upright bass.

Absolutely. Well, it's funny. The song was actually, the conception of the song was Dre on an MPC drum machine. and me playing upright bass.

Really?

In the studio, yeah.

That's how it started.

That's how it started. I had my upright there, and I studied a little bit classically, so I had my bow there, and I just started playing this little line, and Dre asked, is that something? Is that Beethoven or something? And I'm like, no, I think I'm just making it up.

What the?

Yeah, exactly.

Nice.

And so that's where it started, and then we took it, a great keyboard player, The songwriter named Kamar Kambon was there and he added his layers and I added some more layers and then that track was born.

That's so crazy.

It's kind of fun to bring it back to the upright.

Yeah.

And then how did Mary add her vocals? Does she do that separately or does she come in the studio and do it?

Yeah. For that particular song, I think the track was sent to her.

Okay.

And she and a couple of other writers did that on their own.

She tracked her vocals. They just came up with it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Her vocals were delivered and all those incredible layers and harmonies were there. And then, and then Dre mixed it.

And it was a done deal.

And it, and it went on. It was, it was the first time I had a number one hit as a co-writer.

That's so crazy.

It was really.

You were young too.

Yeah. What was that?

2002.

So yeah, I was probably like 29, you know, somewhere in there. Youngish.

Youngish.

You know, old enough to know a little, little bit of something, but yeah, it was, it was life changing, you know, to have something like that played on the radio and, and see your name in the little billboard credit.

Yeah.

That's so cool.

It was fun to play it with you though.

Yeah.

Thanks for playing it with me. It's pretty fun. It's pretty fun to play.

I also, I just love a two chord song that goes plenty of places. It's like, there's no lack of anything.

You're right.

And you just, you're in the vibe and it never stops, you know?

Yeah. So that's pretty cool. I think that was one of the things I learned a lot from Dre were leaning into certain things that can just be sort of this hypnotic trance-like groove and not being afraid to like just stay there and let it just live in that. But yeah, he's, you know, Dr. Dre is a master at like tempo, knowing when something's too fast or too slow.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so that's a case study for sure.

Yeah, I bet.

Also, I guess if you're doing, like, stuff to dance to.

Right.

You want to just stay on whatever it is. You want a bunch of confusing changes.

Yeah, yeah.

Different sections.

And that's what's fun about it, too. Obviously, Mary does an amazing job at, like, introducing new melodies.

Yeah, it still has, like, a chorus and verses and then a bridge.

And very subtle arrangement changes. There's not a lot of things that are going to, like, blast you over the head, but there are a there's little variety and layers that come in and out you know but you know not nothing too uh.

Elaborate yeah yeah it's cool i remember when this album came out and um i was like oh my god what an idea no more drama.

Right Good idea.

I know.

I'm still working on it.

Aren't we all?

I like that she manifested that for herself.

It's pretty awesome. And it's believable coming from Mary. She's got that voice that's sort of like, yeah, you got to do what she says. You got to at least take heed.

Yeah. So how did you hook up with Dr. Joy?

So I went to a school called Hamilton High School in Culver City. And a good friend of mine, Richard Ferreira, became Dre's assistant engineer. And one day, I think, this was also pretty soon after Dre had started Aftermath Records, his record label, post-Death Row. And he was just, you know, he put it out there. He was like, hey, if you guys know any new musicians, I'm open to kind of hear some people. And my name was thrown in the hat. And I kind of went through what I'd call like the training period. Dre had other producers there.

And so they would call me in and play bass lines on their tracks. And then I think some of these tracks got back to Dre and guys like, OK, who's who's playing on these? And and eventually I graduated to doing a session with Dre. Wow. And yeah, it was great. I mean, I think we, you know, we connected on a lot of. record collection stuff, like the records that he grew up with were, some were very similar to mine. And, and then, uh, yeah, well, I mean, he's just, you know, Dre, Dre's incredible. His, his, his range musically is so diverse. And so he'll, he'll talk to you about Pet Sounds and he'll talk to you about Soundgarden and he'll talk to you about, you know, the Beatles and Pink Floyd and, and obviously a lot of,

you know, great soul and R & B. And, and so, uh, I think that's kind of where we found our common ground. And, um, you know, and he, he just kept calling me back and I kept trying to impress Dre. That was my mantra. Cause it was just a lot of fun, a lot of fun being in sessions with him. And then to see some of those songs reach the heights they did. And, and with some of the artists that got pulled into the room, it was life changing.

So cool.

Yeah.

And, and so you had already been a working musician doing, uh, You went to college for music.

Yeah.

No, I did.

And you studied all the classical and did you study jazz in college?

Did you have that?

Yeah.

No, there was definitely jazz in college, but I'd say most of my college studies was predominantly classical.

Yeah.

But there were a lot of jazz groups and musicians that I could go in and play with, you know.

But your gig life was more jazz, right?

Definitely.

Yeah.

And I, you know, and I was in bands. I played in, you know, some real heavy bands. I played in some like R and B funk bands and just trying to just, you know, build my chops and have some fun.

And you're just doing it all.

I was just trying to do it all. Try to be versatile. I think that was also something I, I, I tried to do early on was just honor the fact that I loved a lot of different types of music. And, uh, and so as a musician, I wanted to try and see if I could pull off being authentic. If I was playing jazz or if I was playing rock or, or, you know, R and B and, uh, And so a lot of those opportunities came while I was in college and those performing opportunities. And, you know, the band thing didn't ever work out, you know, came close a couple of times. But I kind of happened to parlay that into getting some studio work.

Yeah.

And then and that's where things really started to take shape at like, OK, maybe I could do this as a career, as a musician, bass player. And, man, had some amazing opportunities playing for guys like Glenn Ballard, you know, who did Alanis Morissette and No Doubt and a lot of other things. And Matt Wallace was another, Matt Wilder, who did No Doubt back, you know, he was coming off No Doubt. And then, incredibly, I met the legendary Jim Keltner on a session.

Totally different world.

Totally different world. But a world I felt connected to.

Yeah. Still grooving.

Yeah.

Right.

And so I, you know, Jim, I made an impression, I guess, on Jim. And next thing I know, I'm getting called into sessions with T-Bone Burnett and Ry Cooter. And it was incredible. So, you know, and right around the same time is when I got the phone call to work with Dre.

Okay. So that came a little first.

A little bit of session work came first. Yeah. And then I meet Dre. And there were times, I mean, I tried to keep both of those worlds together. where maybe i would do a 10 to 3 session with rye cooter wow uh and then i'd i'd bolt to the studio to work with dre from three to whenever yeah and i loved it for me it was like my dream coming true of like having these greats um think that i was worthy enough to be in the room with them that's so cool contribute any way that i could and you know it's kind of where i kind of got my first credits and and.

Experience did you ever get dre and jim kellner together Man.

That would have been crazy.

That is such a great idea. Although I will say I did play a hand in introducing Burt Bacharach to Dr.

Dre.

Really?

Yes.

That's amazing.

And there was, even there's some things, if you search hard enough, there's some released things that Dre did beats for and that I helped integrate into some Burt Bacharach arrangements.

That's wild.

Yeah. Well, I would say that they were Dre beats first. And then Bert wrote to them and did arrangements. That's crazy. But I love that idea. I love the idea of just bringing polar opposite, what would seemingly be polar opposite.

Opposite, but just grooving. Exactly.

Dre, I'm sure, loves a lot of the records that Jim played on.

I'm sure.

Just maybe didn't know it was him. But that's a great idea.

That's cool.

See if I can still make that happen.

And so it became more full-time with Dre, though, right?

You said you were... Did you ever tour with anyone?

I had gotten asked... Right around the time I met Dre, I had gotten asked to do a tour with the amazing Ricky Lee Jones. It was an album called Ghosty Head. And she had seen a great friend of mine, Kendall K, play drums. And Kendall recommended me to come and play bass. And she wanted someone who could play upright bass. And so I did that tour. While I was on that tour, I was getting session calls from Dre saying, And I had to say, man, I'm going to be gone for a month or whatnot. But when I got off the road, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse and kept me in town. Yeah. Kind of an on-call studio musician.

He said, no more touring for you.

No more touring. Yeah. Let's keep you home.

Stay home.

I mean, come on. That's like winning the lottery right there. Pretty cool. But it kept me at home. And also, in my personal life, I had just gotten married. Yeah. You know, and we had hopes of starting a family. So, yeah, Dre kept me off the road, essentially, and in the studio.

Pretty great.

Yeah.

In L.A.

In L.A., yeah. Which is where I was born and raised.

Okay.

So, yeah, hometown and lived there, you know, for, yeah, the bulk of my life.

That's great. And now you live in Nashville.

Yeah.

Yes.

And you moved to Nashville before the COVID? Before the COVID?

Before the COVID. Exactly. Yeah.

So it wasn't even after the COVID. Okay.

No, it was 2019.

Cool.

I think, yeah, we landed there in the dead of summer. And if you've ever been in Nashville in summertime, it's hot, it's humid. And coming from California, I'm like, oh, what is this? What have we done?

No, but it was a shock.

I kind of knew what we were getting into though. Um, we had spent time in Nashville for years prior to that, but, um, but moving there and realizing all of our stuff, everything is now based in Nashville was exciting. And also kind of, I was kind of nervous, you know, cause trying to, you know, establish my, or I guess transplant my career that had always been in LA to Nashville. But, um, I found a great studio that I could kind of take over and that helped, you know, just kind of having a, an environment that I, that I could kind of curate and, you know, and make it to my liking. But, you know, the city and the community of Nashville is second to none. I mean, incredible musicians. Yeah, well, first

of all, everyone's nice.

Everybody's nice.

Which is rare.

It is. At first I remember, like, what do they want? Like, are they trying to get something from you?

No, they're just actually nice. Their mama just taught them how.

To be nice.

Exactly, exactly. But amazing songwriters. I think the songwriting community is what drew me there first.

Oh, yeah.

Met some amazing writers, and then obviously no shortage of incredible, you know, engineers and producers and musicians. And so, yeah, it's kind of like a mixture of what I've always done in LA, but having the incredible, you know, you know, community of writers and people to pull into these sessions has been a blast. So yeah, 2019.

And then didn't you work on the, during the pandemic, like when everything stopped, didn't you work on something kind of huge?

Yeah, I did. It was, it was amazing that this opportunity fell into my lap. Um, so I I've known Lin Manuel Miranda for a number of years and he, uh, he called me up one day and he's just like, Hey, you want to work with me on this Disney thing? He was very, didn't really build it up. He didn't really give me too much information. And I said, sure, as you just say yes to Lin. And come to find out, it was the next Disney feature film that went on to become Encanto.

So we don't talk about Bruno.

Yes. We don't talk about Bruno. We're happy. I'm happy to talk about it. But it was, uh, it was amazing in that I had an outlet because so many of us had to just stop everything and, you know, not a lot of stuff was going on. Eventually we kind of tried to figure out the remote thing, but for Encanto, it was, it was literally, you know, day from beginning to end, it was done remotely.

And, Except you said that you got a group of musicians.

Oh, yeah.

You got to tell that story because it's really good.

So, yeah, the whole process, you know, essentially Lynn does these incredible demos, writes the songs, hands them off to me, and I kind of, you know, do my thing. He gives me a lot of liberty to try things, but, you know, I honor the song. But everything, you know, percussion, I'm not a percussionist, so everything I did percussion-wise was kind of like to my best, you know, to try and assimilate, you know, what I thought would work. But at some point, I found this incredible musician, Edmar Castaneres, who's based in New Jersey, New York, New Jersey area.

But originally from Colombia, who I've played in these demos, and he was able to take the demos and go, oh, okay, here's the rhythm that would be authentic to this region of Colombia.

Yeah.

And, and interpreted it.

You're not getting it.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, no.

He was, he was, you know, he was nice about it, but he was definitely like, oh yeah. And if you want to make this authentic, here's the beat, you know? And so, you know, and he played harp and tiple and, you know, we had these great percussionists come in and to, you know, that, that took a lot of, you know, red tape and hoops because at that time, Disney, nobody wanted to be responsible for a, an outbreak, you know, and we were going to have to get, you know, a number of musicians into a studio. So, We signed all the waivers, did all the tests. Worth it. It was totally worth it.

Yeah.

Because the moment I started to hear these musicians take what was my MIDI programming, you know, assimilation and turn it into something real, it just, it took it to a whole other level. That's so cool. And yeah, it was, I think, a big, a secret ingredient. Not so secret ingredient to like why I think that, first of all, the songs are amazing, but everything works so well and these musicians brought it to life. And yeah, so that was, that was my therapy during, during COVID for sure.

That's nice. Yeah. I did not know you were part of that one. So yeah, you know, I sneak in there every once in a while.

You just gotta look, you gotta look closely, but yeah, sometimes you'll find me in some places you don't expect.

Yeah.

That's the fun of it, right?

Absolutely.

Doing different things.

And yeah, I, that for me, I mean, I'm, I'm grateful. I've, been doing this for a number of years. I mean, probably if I had to put a, it's somewhere in 25, 27 years now, you know, in subcapacity and, and to still get asked to do something that feels like, you know, uncharted territory for me. is when I'm like, oh, yeah, okay.

You're into it.

I'm into it. And I like, I'm okay with just asking for help, too. I've gotten better at that.

You don't have to pretend you know everything.

Exactly. And I think once you get to that point, you start to realize like, oh, there's so much more to gain if you just ask someone like, hey, what do you need here? I'm not sure how to do this. And then they give you two little nuggets of information and you're like, ah, okay. Now I think I can run with that. And That movie was a lot of that, a lot of learning, but a lot of just, you know, and sometimes not knowing can provoke something that that maybe someone else on the other side is like, oh, we don't normally do that. But this actually sounds really cool.

Let's run with it. You know, so it works both ways. Yeah. Ignorance can be bliss.

Yeah, exactly. That's cool. You want to play another song?

I would love to.

Yeah, let's play this John Batiste song. You wrote this with John?

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

Do you normally... Is your usual.

Well, it sounds like we just answered that, but you're kind of like do what's needed when it's needed.

Totally.

You do write with people a lot when you're producing something. Yeah. But you don't only.

Like you sometimes just produce songs that they've already written, right?

Yeah, yeah. I'd say there's a good amount where I'm producing a collection of work that's already been... written, there's times where maybe there's an artist that wants to get to know me and is like, well, hey, why don't we get together and write? And it's kind of like no strings. It's just to see if the chemistry is there.

If you get a song, that's a bonus. And sometimes those songs will turn into like, OK, let's book another week or two and build up an album and then go in and turn those demos into the record. And then there's a handful of times where, like, for instance, this John Batiste song I co-wrote it with John, but I didn't produce it.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, interesting.

I didn't realize that.

Nope. Yeah. And, and, uh, um, you know, it was just one of these days, John, you know, he's one of those guys that like, you just have to be up for, you know, the last minute-ness, you know? And so he can, he called me up, I think it was the night before or whatnot. And he's just like, Hey, I got a day off in Nashville. And, and, uh, And he was like, you kind of come over to the studio and let's write, let's jam. And fortunately, one of his other collaborators, who's also a good friend of mine, Steve McKeown, was in Nashville, was in town. And so the three of us got together and jammed, wrote that song, the song Big Money, that became the title track for John's last record.

That's so cool. Yeah.

But yeah, I'd love to play it. That'd be fun.

Yeah, this is a great one.

Okay.

You can buy a house But you can't buy a home You can be surrounded And still be alone.

Oh Lord Could.

Be living the life But not living the dream Mama said, girl, don't you be no dummy.

Everybody's chasing that big, big money, big money.

You might have a horse.

It don't mean you can ride.

You might have a plane that don't make you fly.

Oh, Lord, you can be living the life but not living the dream.

Mama said, girl, don't be a dummy. Everybody's chasing that big, big money, big money.

Now, might as well live for something you can feel. Might as well live for something.

Real, nah Might as well live for something you can.

Feel Might as well live for something real. You can't take it with you cause.

There was nothing with you before.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Same old, same.

Old, same old thing. Make money. You can buy a song.

I don't mean you can sing and you can win it all and still lose everything.

Mama said, girl, don't you be no dummy. Everybody's chasing that big, big money. Don't be a knucklehead or bobblehead dummy. Everybody's chasing that big, big money. Big money.

Live for something you can feel. Might as well live.

For something real.

Might as well live for.

Something you can feel.

Might as well live.

For something real.

Come on. I don't need that end.

I had to do it.

I had to do the last note.

Amazing.

I mean, there's just such, John has such a cool way of like making something real fun and lighthearted.

Yeah.

But when you look at those lyrics, there's some cool nuggets in there.

I love the lyrics. They're so, it's like, yes, that.

That.

Exactly just simplify it break it.

Down yeah break it down to what is necessary it's.

Awesome yeah and he did a really cool video for it if you haven't seen it yeah it's kind of this sort of uh you know what you know like what was the what's it called and like an oil like a snake uh salesman what is it what's it called like when you're selling like snake oil snake oil and yeah exactly But with a fun twist.

That's good.

Yeah.

He just looks like somebody who's always having fun playing music.

Man.

Which is funny because he knows so much. It's actually great that he can just have fun with it. I guess when you know that much, you don't have to think.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm constantly learning things about John and things that, you know, about him that inspire me to be better and find ways to engage. You know, I think he really, I see him as a vessel, you know, for just music and goodness and things that feel bright and positive. And he just puts that on full display. And the fact that he has the energy to do that, He's got a.

Lot of energy.

He's got a lot of energy.

It's awesome.

I have seen John Batiste crash out in a studio, though. He does need a recharge every once in a while.

Crash out, meaning?

Meaning he just took.

A little nap.

Okay, but see, that's different now with the kids today.

That's right.

When you go crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

You mean it in the old school way.

You mean it in our.

He crashed.

He fell asleep.

He didn't crash.

Okay. Just to clarify. I don't want any rumors getting started.

Yeah, I'm not allowed to use.

But he's thrown tantrums and like, you know.

No, no, no.

He was.

Setting pianos on fire because he's mad.

It would be cool to see him do that.

I don't think he would do that. That's awesome.

Amazing. Cool.

That was fun.

Thanks for listening to our show. The first song we did was called Family Affair, which is the Mary J. Blige song, of course.

Mike co-wrote this song for the album No More Drama, which was released in 2001.

Second song was Big Money, the.

John Petit song, which Mike also co-wrote for the album Big Money, 2025. Special thanks to Mike Elizondo for joining us today. We'll be back next week with part two of this episode. Nora Jones is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

I'm your host, Nora Jones. Recorded by Matt Marinelli.

Additional recording and mixed by Jamie Landry. Audio post-production and mastering by Jamie Landry. Artwork by Eliza Fry. Photography by Shervin Lenez. Produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda. Executive Producers Aaron Wong-Kaufman and Jordan Runtag. Marketing Lead, Allison Cantor-Graber.

Thank you.

Mike Elizondo (Part 1)

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