Episode 120: HBD FOTB
Links
Transcript
Transcript
Time crisis in a time of crisis joined together by FaceTime in this time of crisis.
On this week's episode, we talk about music and basketball and how they intersect in the hit doc series The Last Dance.
We also celebrate the first birthday of Father the Bride as we are joined by rock critic Stephen Haydn
to talk about Guided by Voices, The Strokes, and so much more.
This is Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
They passed me by, all of those great romances
You were a felt rubbing me, all my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt you the blow, when a bus had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying, one of us is lying
In a lonely bed
Time Crisis back once again. What's up, Jake?
The usual. How are you?
[laughs]
Never know how to answer that question.
I mean, you know, sometimes there's an answer. Most of the time it's not bad.
You know, doing all right. Same old, same old.
I installed an art show this afternoon, which will only be seen online.
You actually hung paintings in a gallery?
Yes, I made seven new large tree paintings and they got picked up this morning,
brought in a truck over to the gallery, Nino Meyer Gallery, who I show with in LA.
Yeah, so then we like hung seven paintings on one wall. It looks crazy.
And we're going to have like some really nice install shots, shot tomorrow.
So basically, when you're not hauling actual trees from the nursery to your house,
you're hauling paintings of trees to the Nino Meyer Gallery.
Hell yeah. Yeah, I just posted on Instagram and someone immediately,
like the first comment was like, "Tree talk."
Tree talk. This is tree talk round two.
So it's the same gallery where your last show was.
Yeah, we were going to do an art fair, like an exhibition in Brussels in April
that was canceled, obviously.
And then so kind of like hit pause on the paintings for a few weeks
and then I got going with them again and finished them.
And then we were like the best option we have for all this new work is to,
and a lot of galleries are doing this, is install the work in the gallery
in the real space that no one will see.
You would think that galleries would be pretty easy for social distancing,
just like one buyer at a time, hour apart.
Yes.
Keep your hands to yourself, wear a mask.
You can make appointments to go see the work.
And I think that's going to happen. It'll be up for a while.
But it's not something where you can just like walk in off the street
or like there's no big opening or anything like that.
It's sort of like, it's like a surreal facsimile of a show or something,
even though it is a real show.
Anybody can check it out online. They just go to the, you know, my website.
Yeah.
Does this show have a name?
Spring Wind.
Tight. What's the origin story?
This is so goofy.
There's actually an unreleased, unrecorded Mountain Brew song called Spring Wind.
Oh, really?
Which is about like birds being in trees and like,
just kind of like vibing out in the yard,
like on like the rustle of the leaves and like hummingbirds and stuff.
And then I like finished all these big tree paintings and it's really springy
and nice here right now. And I just was like, it just popped in. Spring Wind.
That's tight. Cause it's, it feels to me like an uncommon phrase.
We always hear about the cold winds and then there's the famous summer breeze,
which people love.
Summer breeze!
The Seals and Crofts summer breeze.
Makes me feel fine.
People focus on other things in spring. You don't really hear about spring wind,
but that's real. Especially like in a place where spring comes late, you know,
where it's like the sun is out, but it's still early April.
It's like freezing and just get a face full of hard spring wind.
We'll be dipping in and out, but today's the Father of the Bride anniversary episode.
Cause last week was one year of FOTB.
There's a song on that record called Spring Snow.
Yeah, I remember.
Which is named after a excellent Japanese novel.
But even like spring snow, I feel like I hear more than spring wind,
but spring wind is real. It's a real phenomenon.
Yeah. Especially in LA too. You got those warm, like westerly desert winds coming in.
Right. And it's absolutely more than a breeze.
Yeah. You like go outside at night and it's like, Whoa, it's warm.
There's like a warm breeze and it's like very fragrant floral smells in the yard.
Yeah. That's another type of spring wind.
It could be like knocking over garbage cans.
I've always been curious about this. I don't have a handle on it,
but like I've heard it from, you know, OG Angelenos, like a Rashida,
you know, people who like been here forever where they talk about earthquake weather,
which I think is a bit of like, kind of like a myth.
Cause obviously if people could predict earthquakes via weather, that would change things.
Is earthquake weather kind of like hot wind? Is that part of earthquake weather?
Are you familiar, Jake? What's your take on earthquake weather?
Does that mean anything to you?
For some reason, I thought earthquake weather was like when it was sort of like humid.
It's also the name of a solid, very underrated Joe Strummer solo album from 1989 called Earthquake Weather.
Tight.
There's some good songs on that and a really sick album cover. Definitely taken in LA.
He's standing on a diving board against a kind of vibey dusk LA sky.
Oh, wow.
I feel like I've always associated in my brief experiences with hearing people talk about earthquake weather.
I also just associate it with like just a weird, uneasy feeling.
And that's something that people like who haven't spent a lot of time in LA maybe don't think about that much.
LA famously has like quote unquote nice weather.
Right.
But there is this LA vibe and it's not just like, oh, in the desert it gets cold at night.
Yeah, everybody knows that. But there's this other vibe sometimes.
Like around dusk and even though it's warm, the wind is so intense. It's uneasy.
Sometimes even when I think about like the hot, crazy LA wind, that's just like the palm trees,
like just giant palm fronds just like falling down ready to kill people.
I always think about, I don't even know what this is from. Is it from like a folk song or something?
The phrase that often pops into my head is "ill wind."
It's like, damn, that's an ill wind.
Wow.
That's a Radiohead song, "Ill Wind."
But it's also a jazz tune. I guess it refers to a few things, but just like, oh, let's see.
What is this? Shakespeare? There's a 1546 proverb about an ill wind that nobody blows good.
Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's a lot of songs and poems about winds.
Like, do you know that like there's a Rod Stewart song called "Mandolin Wind?"
Yeah.
And then there's a Bruce Hornsby song called "Mandolin Rain."
And then there's the winds of change and then there's "Blowing in the Wind."
Yeah, wind is strange because it's like, breeze is mellow. Breeze is something you enjoy.
Once you graduate to wind, it generally has something to do with change.
It's kind of like a strange omen. It's unsettling. Wind is unsettling.
Especially, you know, everybody knows what that's like, the howling wind.
Did we ever talk about Percy's song on this show, Jake? I think we're both a fan of that song.
The Fairport Convention.
Right, which is originally a Dylan song, which in turn, like a lot of early Dylan is referencing an old folk song.
Yeah.
But the Fairport Convention version is really beautiful.
These like stacked harmonies telling the story.
It basically opens "Bad news, bad news, come to me where I sleep."
And basically it's telling the story about just like getting a call on the phone that basically is like,
"One of your friends is in trouble deep."
And it's a really strange story. I feel like we did talk about this early days.
So it's a really strange story.
I think you're right.
The whole song is just basically getting a phone call. It's like, "Your friend's in trouble."
It's like, "Oh, what happened?"
And then you kind of find out that they were in an accident and it wasn't exactly their fault,
but they're about to get like life in prison.
And you're like, "Oh, let me go talk to the judge."
And it's this very strange story that doesn't really go anywhere.
It's not even about the drama of the person in prison.
It's about the friend who gets the call and just kind of like finds out something really harsh.
Just like, "Sh*t, my buddy's about to get life in prison."
And then you go try to talk to the judge. You're like, "Hey, I don't think this is fair, man."
And he's just like, "It is what it is."
It's like a very... weirdly, it's about just kind of like accepting the chaotic violence of life or something.
A real tough break.
It's just about a tough break.
Oh, dude, it goes, "Four persons killed and he was at the wheel. Turned to the rain and the wind."
And the wind. That's what I was thinking about because it's also like this...
Obviously in folk music, the rain and the wind is famous.
Got me out in the cold rain and snow.
Rain, wind, snow. All the kind of things you could categorize as foul weather.
But in that song, it's like the verses and then the refrain is, "Turn, turn to the rain and the wind."
It's a little bit like a non sequitur where it's kind of like, "I woke up in the middle of the night. I got a call. Turn to the rain and the wind."
"They told me your friend's in trouble. Turn to the rain and the wind."
I said, "What happened?"
"Well, he's in a car crash. Four persons killed. Turn to the rain and the wind."
And it's this weird mantra, which I don't know.
My interpretation is always just kind of like, it's like a fact of life.
That kind of the winds of change blow.
They don't always make sense.
And it's like kind of ominous and weird, but you just got to turn and face it.
Turn to the rain and the wind.
Normally you'd probably turn away from the rain or the wind, but it's just like, "Turn. Just take it."
Is what it is, man.
The last lyric of the song is, "My guitar could play. Oh, the cruel rain and the wind."
See, I think that's Dylan getting kind of Borgesian, self-referential.
Because there's an old folk song called "The Rain and the Wind."
So at the end, it's like this person just witnessed truly randomness.
A friend was in an accident. It wasn't their fault. Now their life in prison.
Four people died, and now another life is ruined by going to prison.
I also just picture somebody just like didn't take a shower, ran over to the courthouse, all f***ed up.
Just like stressed out, and then just like gets home and just like totally shell-shocked by this whole experience.
And they grab the guitar, and then the only song they can play is this old folk song about the rain and the wind.
Because, you know, that's kind of it, man.
Sometimes that's life. Just like the rain and the wind.
We were texting about this recently. I think we should put a pin in this for a future episode.
I think we should discuss the Bob Dylan movie, "I'm Not There."
Oh, yeah. So you revisited that. I've been meaning to.
I need to finish it. But I just thought of it when you were talking about him being obsessed with old folk music.
And the movie does a really good job of showing how on one hand he was this completely acerbic, post-modern hipster.
But on the other hand, he was a complete traditionalist.
And they do that with the different personifications or the characterizations of him throughout the film, played by these different actors.
They really divide the different sides of his personality up really well.
Anyway, it's definitely worth a revisit.
And you know what? We could even encourage the DC heads to do that.
Because I've been meaning to rewatch it.
So anybody who cares about Dylan or who made it Todd Haynes, watch "I'm Not There."
And we're going to discuss it in the next episode.
We haven't really talked about quarantine movies in a long time at this point.
Everybody's got their own routine. But yeah, next week, let's do a deep dive on "I'm Not There."
Yeah, we'd love to.
Bad news, bad news came to me where I sleep.
Turn, turn, turn again.
Saying one of your friends is in trouble deep.
Turn, turn to the rain and the wind.
Tell me the trouble, tell me once to my ear.
Turn, turn, turn again.
Juliet the prison in 99 years.
Turn, turn to the rain and the wind.
Speaking of pop culture, there's actually a couple things I wanted to hit today before we get into the Father of the Bride one-year anniversary Jubilee week
spectacular stuff.
Have you been watching the last Dance Jig, the ESPN doc about the Chicago Bulls 97-98 season?
I wish I could say yes, I haven't been. And it's for the dumbest reason.
It's only available on some like spectrum. I haven't really looked into it, but...
You need some form of cable, I think.
Don't have cable. Have Apple TV, because I'm a company man.
Right.
Anyway, long story short, haven't watched it.
Understood. Do you feel like you're missing out on a pop cultural phenomenon? Has it been on your radar quite a bit?
I feel like I'm missing out.
Well, I think also it's hitting especially hard now because there's no sports.
So this doc series has become like anybody who cares about sports is talking about, even people who don't care about sports, particularly like me, are getting kind of
sucked in.
And I've always been like very interested in basketball because I've always found like the Knicks to be like the kind of most romantic team of the New York teams.
Really?
Well, the fact that they lose a lot.
Even when they're good, they never quite... There's always some sort of heartbreak involved.
And so it's like an interesting cast of characters.
And if the Yankees, you know, in their kind of like imperial phase, just rich as hell, winning everything.
And then the Yankees, you know, just like one kind of face of New York.
The Knicks represent this kind of like underdog, underachieving kind of side of New York.
And I always liked that. And to some extent, I always just liked people who liked the Knicks.
So I'd always like meet people with all the cool and they'd be really into the Knicks and they'd kind of get me curious about it.
So I've been curious about basketball. And were you watching much basketball in the 90s?
Yeah, I'm actually a Knicks fan.
Because just growing up in the tri-state, you were a Knicks fan?
Yeah, I was a CT boy.
And you had some Boston Celtics fans as well.
I mean, Connecticut, I think we've discussed this is, you know, it's the midway point between Boston and New York.
And so growing up, you got Yankees fans, you got Mets fans, you got Red Sox fans, you got Knicks fans.
You got a few, maybe a few Nets fans when they were in New Jersey.
You got a lot of Celtics fans.
Yeah.
So I was like real into the Knicks, like '93, '94, '95, like that era.
So like Patrick Ewing, John Starks.
Charles Oakley, Doc Rivers. Yeah, that era.
They were in the finals, right?
I'm impressed with your knowledge, dude.
It's like funny. I remember a lot of this stuff partially just because I'm interested in the 90s.
But also because there's that super vibey OJ doc, not the one made by my nemesis, Ezra Edelman, which is also excellent.
That's like the really big one. But before that, there was this really vibey one that's kind of like a ESPN tone poem.
Whoa.
It's all just found footage from the day of the Bronco chase.
Whoa.
It was a big day for sports because it was like the Knicks were in the finals.
Right.
Maybe it was like opening day of baseball.
It was some famous golfer like Jack Nicklaus or somebody was playing their last game.
So basically it was like this unusually stacked day for sports.
So they have all this footage of like the Marv Alberts of the world and all these sportscasters just kind of like broadcasting.
And then in between just kind of being like, what he's doing?
Wait. And it's hard for people to remember.
But obviously OJ Simpson, this iconic athlete, you know, suddenly being like on the run from the cops and his boys got a gun in the car.
It was crazy.
These people like finding it out in real time and kind of like being like, how are we going to talk about this?
And cutting in just be like kind of weird news out of Los Angeles.
So this is all happened like Madison Square Garden just like packed for the game.
And meanwhile, they're like kind of cutting away to OJ on the freeway.
So that I forget what it's called, but it's one of those ESPN documentaries.
June 17th.
June 17th.
Yeah.
Which is the day it happened.
And by the way, you know, it was directed by Brett Morgan, who did montage of Hector Cobain.
Right.
So he's very into montages.
It's very vibe and it kind of feels like you're just flipping through the channels on this crazy day, which 1994 arguably was like the birth of a new era.
You know, people always talk about the OJ Simpson scandal and trials being the birth of reality TV.
And I feel like 94 is feels like such a crucial year.
So it is kind of like you're watching TV on this weird day where like the winds of change are blowing.
But anyway, so that always reminds me, oh yeah, the Knicks were in like a big game in 94 because that's when they were good.
Probably the finals if it was June.
Yeah, I think it was the finals, which they lost.
Yes.
So anyway, back to the last dance.
One thing I wanted to talk about is like I'm vaguely familiar with basketball.
Like, of course, I knew Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman.
But I was very interested by all these kind of like music and pop culture connections that you see in it.
People have gone on about how good the soundtrack is.
And it is really good, but I'm not even talking about that.
Not the actual soundtrack, just like some of these interesting musical connections.
So the coach at the time was Phil Jackson.
Do you know much about him, Jake?
Yeah, I do actually.
So they kind of dedicate an episode to his backstory.
And, you know, he was on the Knicks way back in the day.
As soon as you see this dude, he's got this like very interesting demeanor.
And he's kind of like this guy that, you know, as soon as you see him and the way he talks,
you're kind of like, that seems like a dude who's like taking a heroic dose of mushrooms a few times in his life.
And he talks about how he really connected with Dennis Rodman because Dennis Rodman walked into his office one day
and saw that he had like all this kind of like Native American stuff on the wall.
And Dennis Rodman was like, oh, you know, when I played in Oklahoma,
I got to know some of like the people down there, some of the local tribes.
And they started having this whole conversation about Native American religion and mythology.
He's like, yeah, so he kind of, you know, we really connected on that.
And they go through his whole backstory that he grew up in Montana and then played for the Knicks,
but then also was this kind of like slightly hippie dude.
He didn't like really look like a hippie by the time he's coaching the Bulls, like wearing a suit and stuff.
But so of course I'm watching this and my first thought is like, do you think this dude's a deadhead?
And then I look it up and like, of course he is.
There's like pictures of him and Bill Walton, the other famous NBA deadhead, just like at shows together.
And you're kind of like, that's interesting.
That means Michael Jordan was only one degree away from the dead.
And then it got me kind of thinking about like, is there something kind of like hippie dippy about basketball?
I mean, obviously like football's buff, just like violent.
I think we had a conversation on this show before about there is something like pretty tight about baseball.
That baseball is kind of like Zen and slow and weird and like strangely American.
Is it just a coincidence that two of like the most iconic deadhead athletes were basketball players?
Or is there something like intrinsically...
Flowy.
Baseball is pretty stoner in a way, but is basketball more like psychedelic?
I bet there were baseball players in the seventies who were deadheads, but maybe they just weren't prominent.
Yeah. And then there's like, there's the famous story of the guy who pitched a no hitter on acid.
I just keep thinking of the word flowy. I don't know if that even is a word.
It's funny that you say that because of the big three, American sports basketball is the flowiest, similar to hockey or soccer.
But in the episode about Phil Jackson, the coach of the Bulls through this tremendous season or these tremendous seasons,
you know, two, three Pete's pretty incredible.
At some point they're talking about how he really liked to listen to this older kind of like assistant coach dude,
whose name was Tex and that he was like really tuned into this guy.
And he was really into his old wisdom, which some of the other coaches weren't.
So he really wanted to listen to what this guy Tex had to say.
And this big obsession that he got from this guy Tex was about the triangle technique.
And this is where my understanding of basketball goes out the window.
Cause I've often felt a little bit like when I watch other people watching basketball,
of course I enjoy the atmosphere and like a crazy dunk or something,
but I've often had this feeling watching basketball that it's like, I can tell it's flowy and it's chaotic,
but I sometimes look through somebody else's eyes who's totally dialed in and I'll be like, you're seeing s**t that I'm not seeing.
Absolutely.
It's a little psychedelic.
Like if two people are looking in a river and one person was seeing like sacred geometry in it and somebody else is just like, man, I don't know.
This s**t's moving too fast.
I can't make heads or tails of it.
And so this thing that Phil Jackson was obsessed with, and I guess became a huge part of the Bulls strategy was all this s**t about triangles.
And there's like one brief moment that's kind of my standout moment of the whole series where they're showing some movement on the court.
They overlay graphics so you can see the way the triangles are moving.
And Phil Jackson's like, well, here's the thing about the triangle.
It flows.
And with a triangle, suddenly each player has multiple opportunities to move and change and the triangle can become a new triangle.
And so suddenly you're watching like a fractal very briefly.
You're watching like fractals move around on the court.
And I was like a little bit like, oh s**t.
And there's a weirdly a part of me, maybe there's more to it.
Maybe we can find some more info, but there's a part of me that was like, maybe this isn't just like a kooky, like funny thing.
Like, oh, ha ha.
He likes the grateful dead.
Maybe there really was something that one of the greatest basketball organizations of all time actually was a combination of these differing sensibilities.
Michael Jordan, of course, being one.
And then also this like older deadhead coach who maybe like was into like flow, sacred geometry, psychedelic thinking.
There's mosquitoes on the river.
Fish are rising up like birds.
It's been hot for seven weeks now.
Too hot to even speak now.
Did you hear what I just heard?
Say it might have been the wind.
Or it could have been the wind.
But there seems to be a beat now.
I can feel it in my feet now.
Listen, here it comes again.
There's a band out on the highway.
Their hearts tipping every time.
It's a rainbow full of sound.
It's far worse than all these other sounds.
We're the loudest band in town.
Some other music stuff from The Last Dance.
There's Dennis Rodman wearing a Pearl Jam shirt.
We're going to get Stephen Hyden, friend of the show, rock critic on the phone.
And I'm sure he'll have something to say about that because he's a bit of a Pearl Jam scholar.
Eddie Vedder was on Bill Simmons' podcast a few weeks ago.
Simmons was asking him about being friends with Rodman.
And he was sort of like, they were up in Seattle and it was like after a game.
Rodman was like, "Hey Eddie, let's fly to Vegas."
And Eddie Vedder was like, "What? Like right now? It's like 11 o'clock at night, dude. Why?"
And there was like a concert that he wanted to see.
And so they just flew down to Vegas, dragged Eddie Vedder with them to this show.
And then flew back and had a game the next day.
Whoa, I wonder what show it was.
It sounded so extreme. I'm trying to remember.
It was a rock show.
Was it like Screaming Trees?
Mud Honey?
Mud Honey.
Candle Box.
I gotta look this up.
What the hell do I Google here?
Eddie Vedder.
Here, I'm Googling Eddie Vedder, Dennis Rodman, Las Vegas.
And I'm going to add Bill Simmons.
Who was like big in that era?
Like maybe like Nine Inch Nails?
I can picture like a Nine Inch Nails Vegas concert.
Mid 90s.
Trent walks off stage.
Just Dennis Rodman and Eddie Vedder.
Great show, man.
Flew out for it.
Rodman, don't you have a game tomorrow?
Oh, don't worry about me.
Okay, so Rodman really was like a rock dude.
Dude, hold on one second. I found it. It was Jane's Addiction.
Whoa!
A show in November of '97.
Oh, okay.
Alright, so that was towards the end of the Great Bulls run.
It's funny too because in the doc they don't talk about Jane's Addiction.
But they talk about Phil Jackson, the kind of like peaceful deadhead coach,
being very understanding about the fact that Rodman was kind of like a wild child
who sometimes needed to fly to Vegas.
They actually reference him going to Vegas.
And you could almost imagine just like Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen being like,
"Phil, are you really going to let Rodman go to Vegas?
Like he's just going to party. He's going to be all f***ed up when he gets back."
And Phil just being like, "Listen, guys.
I've been to Grateful Dead shows that changed my whole perspective on basketball.
I'm not a Jane's Addiction fan. It's just not my scene.
But if Dennis feels that way about Jane's, I think he's going to come back playing even better."
And Michael's just like, "You better be right, Phil, because the whole season's riding on this."
It was a combo of grunge fandom, hard rock grunge fandom, deadhead fandom,
Michael Jordan's insane work ethic.
We've got to find out more about what kind of music Scotty Pippen liked.
But I love all the secondary music stuff.
And of course, the Chicago Bulls theme in that era was Alan Parsons' project.
Right.
I think Alan Parsons' project had some legitimate hits.
And this is like a cool album. I always like the single "Eye in the Sky."
Mm-hmm.
♪ I am the eye in the sky ♪
It's so hard to hear this song and not hear the basketball.
Yes.
It's like an English prog rock band in the early '80s just experimenting with synths and stuff.
But now I hear that and it's just literally like, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Chicago Bulls."
It's wild how that happens. You just can't hear anything but basketball.
I wonder if the Chicago Bulls experimented with Bob O'Reilly.
That would be a very similar vibe.
As a walk-on, it's very similar.
♪
It's so ominous, too.
I love that dainty little fill.
Yeah, it's tender drumming.
I'm not sure I've actually heard this song ever.
Well, you've heard the beginning.
Of course. Is it instrumental?
Yeah.
This is not a million miles away from LA Takedown.
Oh, yeah, totally. That kind of '80s vibe-y movie.
Like Michael Mann's soundtrack.
Yeah, totally.
And also the rest of the songs on this album are called "Children of the Moon," "Gemini," "Silence and I."
Very vibe-y.
Damn.
I don't know. Maybe Phil Jackson picked it.
I can picture a deadhead by the '80s being like, "I like some of the Alan Parsons Project stuff."
Yeah, it'd be cool to get the backstory on that.
We'll have to go a little bit deeper.
Another thing about "The Last Dance" that's pretty interesting.
There's a brief Jerry Seinfeld cameo. Seinfeld, you know about that?
Yeah, I'm familiar with this. It's awkward.
And I think the significance of it is that Jerry and Jordan were both retiring in the same year, both in their prime kind of thing.
So that was kind of the relationship there.
But Jerry enters the locker room and he's sort of out of sorts and he feels like he doesn't belong there.
It's a little bit endearing in its awkwardness, for sure.
Yeah, you can tell that Jerry's kind of ready to go.
But one interesting thing is that one thing that wasn't that awkward is him and Jordan's rapport, actually.
Because they're interviewing Jerry, he's on the court before he goes backstage and he kind of makes a joke about,
"Seinfeld, show of the '90s. The Chicago Bulls, the team of the '90s.
We're both retiring!" And he makes a joke about it.
And you're kind of like, "Alright, he's a fan. He's drawing a parallel between him and Jordan.
But these two mega-celebrities probably actually don't have anything to talk about."
But then when they go back there, it's kind of awkward.
But Jordan is very, "Oh, hey, Jerry. How are you doing?"
They actually have a pretty solid rapport.
"Alright, well, good luck. Alright, Jerry, I'll see you."
There's a lot of stuff about the Jordan branding.
Obviously, we can go so deep on it, but one thing that struck me is there's part of an episode
where they're kind of talking about how not only did Michael Jordan revolutionize the NBA and basketball,
he also revolutionized branding and sponsorships and all that stuff.
And they interview his agent, who signed him very early on, who had this vision for Jordan
that was kind of like, "We're going to do something with you that has never happened to a basketball player.
You're going to be like a tennis player or a golfer. That iconic, singular figure."
Because people used to be like, "Well, basketball is a team sport. There's no Arthur Ashe."
And he was like, "No, no. Jordan's going to be the standout guy."
And of course, he changed the face of branding forever from Air Jordans and on.
But one thing that struck me watching all that footage is he was a big Gatorade endorser.
And that was one of his major ones, Gatorade.
It's funny seeing the old Gatorade glass bottles. It kind of looks like a Snapple bottle.
I remember those.
I guess that still exists in some places, but it is so funny just to imagine the worst possible material
for courtside at a sports game. Just this glass bottle.
How many glass Gatorades probably broke?
For some reason, I have a memory of, we had a glass bottle of Gatorade in my fridge in my house growing up.
And I remember pulling it out of the fridge and dropping it onto the ground and it shattering.
Really?
Gatorade was kind of new and I was super stoked that my mom had gotten Gatorade at the grocery store.
And I was like, "Oh, sick. Gatorade as a grocery item? This is exciting."
And then just immediately dropped it on the ground and it shattered.
That's like a little kid whose ice cream cone falls on the ground.
Absolutely. I was crushed.
All of that potential gone in an instant. It's a good life lesson.
But one thing that really struck me watching it, which I kind of appreciated,
was that the original tagline for Michael Jordan X Gatorade was,
there's similar things with a lot of his endorsements, but it was just,
"Be like Mike, drink Gatorade."
And it kind of struck me that there was, with celebrity endorsements back in the day,
there was a pleasant simplicity.
Be like Mike.
Now there has to be all these layers of irony and stuff and kind of like,
"Hey, I know what you're thinking.
Jason Derulo, are you really trying to sell me Fritos right now?"
Well, here's the thing. It's got to be so many layers.
But back in the day, it was pretty straightforward.
It was just like, "Listen, losers. You're an average person.
This man is a god. What does he do? He drinks Gatorade.
You should do it too. Straight up."
There's something about being like Mike,
which was such a straightforward kind of old-school phrase.
It was just like, "Why should you buy these products?
Because this guy does that.
Why should you be like this guy? Because he's amazing."
Like, duh. Just straightforward.
-Be like Mike. -Oh, my God.
Drink Gatorade.
I guess the audience is, quote-unquote, "too sophisticated" now for that kind of stuff.
But I love that old-school sh*t. Just like, "Be like Mike."
We almost take for granted how strange that phrase is, but it's like,
"Yeah, why do you think we paid this guy this much money?
Because he's amazing. You should want to be like him."
I wonder if that would work today, if they just did a return to simplicity.
Who's a big athlete? Like, I don't know.
LeBron James.
LeBron James. There you go.
Tough to rhyme with LeBron.
LeBron has a ton of endorsements, but I think it's still--
Yeah, I guess "be like LeBron" just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way.
-I mean, Steph Curry. -Tom Brady.
Does he do a lot of, like, big endorsements?
I'm sure he does, but I can't think of them.
How crazy is it that Wayne Gretzky was famous?
Can you imagine a hockey player being famous now?
It's really been a long time since a hockey player was famous.
Yeah.
Jake, can you name a single, like, current NHL player?
No. Can you?
I feel like I got one on the tip of my tongue.
Wait, what about you, Seinfeld?
-Sports Talk. -Oh, man.
Ty Domi. I mean, yeah.
That's a current player?
For a few years ago, he was. I don't even know if he's playing anymore.
I see Matt laughing really hard at that.
So my assumption is he's not a current player.
Shaking his head.
Oh, Henrik Lundqvist. He was on the Rangers forever.
And maybe he still is. Like, he's, like, the old man of the team.
All right, Matt's saying yes. All right, so I know one.
Henrik Lundqvist.
I'm impressed.
Jump in, jump in, jump in, them boys up to something.
They just spent, like, two or three weeks out the country.
Them boys up to something. They just not just bluffing.
You don't have to call, I hit my dance like Usher.
I just found my tempo like on DJ Mustard.
I hit that Jenoblee with my left hand, though, like, whoo.
Lobster and Celine for all my babies that I miss.
Chicken fingers, french fries for them girls that wanna dance.
Jump in, jump in, jump in, them boys up to something.
Uh-uh-uh, I think I need some Robitussin.
Way too many questions, you must think I trust you.
You searching for answers, I do not know nothing, whoo.
I see 'em tweaking, they know something's coming, whoo.
Jump in, jump in, jump in, them boys up to something, whoo.
Jump in, jump in, jump in, what you expecting, whoo.
Shottown, Shottown, Michael Jordan just said, "Text me," whoo.
Hey, do you guys remember the cartoon Pro Stars?
The Saturday morning cartoon?
It was Wayne Gretzky, Bo Jackson, and Michael Jordan.
Wow.
And as a kid, I always thought it was so funny
because they would come out of the animation,
they would do live-action interstitials
where it'd be like Wayne Gretzky would skate up
and he'd be like, "Hey, kids, make sure to recycle
because blah, blah, blah," and it'd be this elaborate live-action thing.
And Michael Jordan was so famous that he would just shoot a three-pointer
and just say one thing to camera.
I just thought that was funny.
It's also funny when I think about cartoons like that.
And I might be slightly misreading the situation,
but that cartoon was probably made because those guys were so famous.
But watching The Last Dance, where all these commentators
associate Michael Jordan's rise so much
with the rise of the NBA and basketball
as being this global phenomenon,
because there's a part where they're playing a game in France,
and then, of course, the Dream Team in Spain,
which, by the way, is the same Olympics where the Grateful Dead
sponsored the Lithuanian team,
so the dead psychedelic connection to basketball continues.
But anyway, they talk so much about Michael Jordan,
they're like, "What he did for basketball globally, growing the audience."
And then you think about a cartoon that's made where it's just--
It's not even like the Michael Jordan show.
It's like they picked three dudes because it's about sports.
This might seem like kind of a lame point,
but it kind of makes me think about how--
Obviously, Jake, you and I both work in the arts,
music, fine art, painting, radio.
We kind of accept that those are our lanes,
and we do our best within them.
But it's always funny to me to think about these moments
when something that we take for given--
What kind of sh*t are people into? Music, art, sports.
Now you've got podcasts, social media.
But there's only so many things that people are into.
It's easy to forget that there are these key moments
in branding and marketing where somebody wanted
not to grow an individual team or an individual player,
but they just wanted to grow the concept of sports.
Yeah.
People have always loved to play sports.
People love to horse around.
Little kids love to wrestle.
Sure, sure.
You watch animals. You watch the daddy lion and the baby.
They wrestle and they play.
I believe that that kind of exertion for fun,
which is a way you could describe sports,
is hardwired into the human experience.
But it is funny just to picture in the '80s--
Because I guess I'm thinking about how hockey is now
this kind of in a distant fourth in terms of popularity
of American sports.
But there was a while in the early '80s that they talk about
when basketball just wasn't that popping.
I'm sure there's all sorts of reasons for why
it just wasn't quite as relevant.
And then you have this bunch of superstars
who just get people in.
I think people credit David Stern with that as well,
who was the commissioner at that time.
There's probably a good David Stern book.
I'm curious about that, where it's almost like--
Yeah, probably like a David Geffen or something,
or like the colonel, Elvis' manager.
One of these people who sees something that we take for given.
It's like basketball, rock and roll, music.
People just like this [bleep] right?
You don't have to sell it. You got to sell the players.
And it's like, no, no, no.
There was a moment when people--
A lot of Americans just weren't as into basketball.
And they had to sell people on the sport.
They had to sell people on the idea that sports
is a huge part of your life.
And not just something that you vaguely follow
for your local team or something you do
with your friends on the weekend.
This is a big business thing that you support
year in, year out.
It's part of what you do.
So when you think about a cartoon like that,
I'm sure somewhere along the lines,
there was a conversation about--
Maybe literally like Michael Jordan's being like,
"I don't know if I want to do this."
And David Stern's like, "Michael,
"you're not just selling Michael Jordan here.
"You're selling the world on basketball."
And Michael's like, "Everybody likes basketball."
And he's like, "No.
"There's about 30% of people who don't know
"if they like basketball yet."
And you do these things to just grow the sport.
It's a very strange concept.
- When David Stern took over as commissioner,
the NBA finals were on tape delay,
being shown in the middle of the night.
- Whoa.
- Isn't that crazy?
- Just 'cause that's how little of a (beep)
anybody gave about basketball?
- Yeah, and whenever he took over,
like early, early '80s, '81 or '82 or something like that,
it would just be like, "Oh, the '81 NBA finals.
"Oh, it's being broadcast at 3 a.m. on tape delay."
Like whatever station showed it.
It wasn't prime time.
It's so weird.
- I guess it helps me understand a little bit,
maybe 'cause I grew up in the '90s
in the era of big business sports,
that my whole life, whenever people would talk about,
"Oh, they're starting a professional lacrosse league,"
or, "There's a new soccer league in the U.S."
You'd always kind of roll your eyes
and you'd just be like, "Bro, there's not room
"for another president's head on Mount Rushmore.
"You're not gonna just add a new sport
"to the American canon."
But it's kind of worth remembering that,
I'm sure there's some of these dudes who are just like,
"Listen, in the early '80s,
"basketball was some regional bull(beep)
"and David Stern and Michael Jordan,
"Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird,
"these guys turned it into a business
"that's now worth 100 times what it was worth in 1980."
I'm telling you right now,
20 years from today, lacrosse will be the new NBA.
Just looking for the Michael Jordan of lacrosse or something,
maybe that will happen.
♪ I ain't no joke, I used to let the mic smoke ♪
♪ Now I slam it when I'm done and make sure it's broke ♪
♪ When I'm gone, I won't get song ♪
♪ 'Cause I won't let nobody press up and mess up the scene ♪
♪ I say, I like to stand in a crowd ♪
♪ And watch the people wonder, "Damn" ♪
♪ But think about a thing you understand ♪
♪ I'm just an addict, addicted to music ♪
♪ Maybe it's a habit, I gotta use it ♪
♪ Even if it's jazz or the quiet storm ♪
♪ I hook a beat up, convert it into hip-hop form ♪
♪ Write a rhyme in graffiti ♪
♪ And every show you see me in ♪
♪ Deep concentration 'cause I'm no comedian ♪
♪ Joke is a wow if you wanna be tame ♪
♪ I treat you like a child and you're gonna be named ♪
♪ Another enemy, not even a frenemy ♪
♪ 'Cause you'll get fried in the end ♪
♪ When you pretend to be competing ♪
♪ 'Cause I just put your mind on pause ♪
♪ And I complete when you compare my rhyme with yours ♪
♪ I wake you up and as I stare in your face ♪
♪ You seem stunned, remember me? ♪
♪ The one you got your idea from ♪
♪ But soon you'll start to suffer ♪
♪ 'Cause you wanna get rougher ♪
♪ When you start to stutter ♪
♪ That's when you had enough of fighting ♪
♪ It'll make you choke, it can provoke ♪
♪ You can't cope, you should've broke ♪
♪ Because I ain't no joke ♪
- So next up, we're gonna welcome back to the show
Steven Heiden, one of America's preeminent rock journalists.
I referenced him on the last show
because I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy
of his book about Radiohead's "Kid A,"
which is coming out in the fall.
But we wanna get him back on the horn
'cause we were referencing it last week
when we were talking about "Kid A."
And also, Jake, I believe that you were recently
very interested in a piece that Steven put together
about your favorite band.
- Right, yeah, he did a big 9,000-word oral history
of Guided By Voice's "Alien Lanes."
It's really a kind of summation of their whole early career.
But I was just kind of curious
to pick his brain about that a little bit.
- Yeah, well, let's get him on the phone.
- Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
(phone ringing)
- Steven? - Yes, yes.
- Hey. - What's up, man?
Welcome back to TC.
- Hey, thanks for having me.
- I wanna talk a little bit about the connections
between music and sports 'cause I was struck by--
you were writing about the "Last Strokes" album.
This is before I'd heard the album.
It was before it came out.
You had an advanced copy,
and you described being a fan of the Strokes
as being something like a Mets fan.
You wanna elaborate on that? - Right, yeah.
Yeah, well, I follow a bunch of people
who are, like, you know, fans of, like,
New York sports teams, like the Mets and the Knicks
and the idea of, like, following
a disappointing New York sports franchise.
And I can't relate to that except in the instance
of the Strokes because I feel like the Strokes
are always--they're like this New York institution
that you feel like you put so much faith in
and you really want them to succeed,
and they don't ever quite get to where you want them to.
- Which is funny because isn't the last song
on that record called "An Ode to the Mets"?
- Right, exactly.
Yeah, I think that's, like, the connection
I made in my review, like, that--
it's like the Strokes became self-aware
in that regard. - [laughs]
- Right. - We came out.
- But I like what you were saying, too,
about being, like--for you,
you weren't complaining, being like,
"Oh, man, they didn't do what I wanted them to."
You were kind of, like, enjoying
the disappointment or the underachiever status
'cause sometimes, like, the underachievers--
and I'm not calling them underachievers,
but, like, they have put out albums
that, like, critics tended to [bleep] on
here and there.
Like, since the early days,
they've never had that just kind of, like,
broad, unimpeachable critical support,
but in some ways, that almost makes them cooler.
Is that part of what you were saying?
- Yeah, yeah. I mean, to me, like,
one of the things I love about the Strokes
is the fact that, like, they don't ever quite
live up to the expectations
of, like, what people want them to be,
and I feel like that's always existed
with the Strokes,
even, like, on their first record.
I remember, like, when that first record came out,
people were complaining that they weren't quite
as great as they should have been or, like, you know,
I feel like that's always existed with them,
so I always felt like that was, like,
such a great analogy, like, with the Strokes,
that, like, they always seemed, like,
better in retrospect maybe than they were,
like, in the actual moment.
- That's where, like, the New York thing
might come in a little bit,
because if you're not from New York
or you don't feel-- have a deep connection
to a New York sports team,
it's New York.
It's, like, this big city.
It's already so culturally dominant
that it's, like, you know,
people are gonna be, like, harder on New York sh*t,
which, you know, maybe they should be.
So, like, maybe in retrospect,
you're kind of like, "You know what?
"That was actually, like, a pretty strong team
"the Mets put together."
There's rarely gonna be that same type of goodwill
for, like, the Mets or the Knicks.
- I mean, it's hard for me to say,
because, like, I'm not from New York,
so I can't--
I'm not, like, a fan of the Knicks
or a fan of the Mets,
but, like, the impression I get
from observing those people
is that, like, part of the joy
of following those teams
is being disappointed by those teams.
You know, like-- - Right.
- If you're still a Knicks fan,
you must be addicted to being disappointed
by the Knicks.
- Right, you need a sense of humor.
So now to pivot, you're from Minnesota.
- Well, I'm from Wisconsin.
- Oh, but now you live in--
All right, so those have been
the two big places in your life.
So you identify as Midwestern.
- Yes.
- Do you feel a connection
to the Chicago Bulls?
Or is--like, what's the relationship
between people in other parts
of the Midwest and Chicago?
- It's funny, because, like,
in Wisconsin, there's sort of
an adversarial relationship
with Chicago,
because Chicago is the big city
in the Midwest,
and in Wisconsin, like,
a lot of people from Chicago
vacation in Wisconsin.
So, like, I remember, like,
when I was growing up,
there's this term that we would use.
We'd refer to people from Chicago
as fibs.
- Fibs?
- F---ing Illinois bastards,
we would call them.
'Cause they would come
into Wisconsin,
and we were, like, you know,
they were associated with, like,
being, like, really aggressive drivers,
being, like, bad tippers.
You know, this idea of, like,
people from Illinois
coming into Wisconsin
and sort of being really pushy
and rude.
And, of course, like,
in terms of, like, the sports thing,
you know, like, with football,
like, the Green Bay Packers
and Chicago Bears,
like, having, like,
a really bad, like, rivalry.
That's, like, the biggest sports rivalry
that there is for football.
But in reference to the Bulls,
I mean, when I was growing up,
I really loved the Bulls,
and I loved Michael Jordan.
- Yeah, I guess everybody
liked Michael Jordan,
so I can imagine why that might
obliterate some, like,
intra-regional rivalries.
But what about Guided by Voices?
Once you get to Ohio,
are we still talking about
the same region?
'Cause Ohio and Wisconsin
and Minnesota,
like, just from touring,
they're both referred to
as the Midwest,
but they're, like, so far apart.
- If we're talking about
Guided by Voices,
I mean, I loved them, like,
when I was a teenager,
like, in the '90s.
So, and I definitely associated,
like, where I was living
with what they were doing,
especially because
Guided by Voices specifically
just seemed so outside
of, like, urban centers
at that time.
So, yeah, I definitely
gravitated to them at that time
because they were from the Midwest.
- There was a sense of, like,
Midwest pride?
- Yeah, absolutely.
Just, like, the mythology
of Guided by Voices.
Like, the first time
I read about them
was, like, in the Rolling Stone
review of Alien Lanes.
- Yeah.
- Which, in my oral history,
like, I discovered, like,
was, like, the longest review
that Rolling Stone had ever,
like, run of, like,
a single album.
I remember reading that
and just totally connecting,
like, with the band
and the mythology, you know,
that they were describing
in that review.
- Yeah, I mean, that, like,
that piece you wrote on Uproxx,
well, I was thinking
about reading it.
I was like, it's actually
kind of rare for a band
to have an actually
truly compelling origin story.
Most bands are just like,
we met when we were young,
we had similar tastes,
we started a band,
things started to take off.
The GBV story is so specific,
and I loved how deep
you went into the
whole backstory.
Like, the whole Matt Sweeney
thing with, like, him
going to his weed dealer's house
in New York,
who's one of these, like,
record collector guys
who's just, like, kind of, like,
way over all rock,
just, like, kind of, like,
jaded about all new rock music.
You know, and he's, like,
blasting GBV and Matt Sweeney,
he's just like, what is this?
- Right.
- And then him becoming
sort of like a one-man
PR unit for the band.
- I mean, that's something
that, like, I think
I wasn't even fully aware of,
like, when I went into that story.
Just the sort of,
yeah, like, in the story,
I think I described him
as, like, a John the Baptist
type preacher of that band,
you know, like, spreading the word,
like, very organically
to, like, people,
like, literally, like,
sitting them down and playing them
every tape that he had
of that band.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing,
like, how things like that
back then could just be spread,
like, person to person,
and then somehow that would
translate to a band
getting, like, real exposure
out in the real world.
- Yeah, I mean,
when I was reading that piece,
I just, I felt that we were
on the cusp of the internet.
Like, no one knew
what was happening.
They were one of the last bands
that there was so little
information about them.
Now it would just be sort of,
like, this is our Instagram,
and, you know, it was so, like,
reading your piece, like,
really brought up all these
memories of, like,
"Oh, yeah, I didn't even know
what they looked like
when I first saw them."
- Well, one question I have
for both of you guys,
'cause we haven't talked about
Guided by Voices on the show
in, I think, probably, like,
100 episodes or something.
- I think--
- Like, really early on,
when we used to have you do
kind of like--
- Yeah.
- Like, Jake introduces a band,
you pick a handful of songs.
- Yeah.
- And I remember you
talking about them,
and I feel like maybe because
your passionate fandom
for the dead really influenced me,
and I think it's become
something that we can both
talk about and enjoy.
And I've always liked
Guided by Voices,
and even before I knew you,
I'd always, like,
know a few songs,
and be like, "Oh, yeah,
that's cool," like,
'90s Matador Records [bleep]
like, absolutely.
I'm curious, and I bet
a lot of listeners are too,
about, like, I feel like
we've identified so much
of, like, on this show
of, like, what we value
about the dead musically,
vibe-wise, what they represent.
Even as somebody who thinks
I like Guided by Voices,
I still feel a little bit
outside it, like,
when I talk to dudes like you,
too, who are, like,
true heads.
And I feel like last time
we talked about GBV,
I feel like, Jake, for you,
obviously, people listen to the show,
they have a sense that they know
who you are,
some of the pillars of your life,
the dead, painting.
And GBV is the one
we talk about the least,
so actually, I'm curious
for both of you guys, like--
- What is it, man?
What's the deal, man?
'Cause Guided by Voices
clearly is a song
that's like, "I'm gonna
"get you to do this."
'Cause Guided by Voices
clearly is like,
they mean something different.
And you guys correct me,
'cause you guys know
way more about all this music
than me, but it's like,
of course, I'm familiar
with kind of, like,
'90s lo-fi, slackery,
Matador Records stuff.
Of course, Pavement is, like,
a major band in that world.
You know, and like,
that grunge adjacent,
but more stuff
you'd call indie stuff.
I get that stuff.
I'm familiar with the sound,
the attitude, whatever.
- I mean, I think for me,
personally, like,
Guided by Voices
was like the Grateful Dead
before the Grateful Dead for me.
Like, they were the first band
that I could dive into
and really care about
the mythology
and, like, care about,
like, following
and being really obsessive
about, like, all the little
things that are in the music.
And I think that's what
Guided by Voices is about.
- Yeah, I mean,
I think that's what
Guided by Voices is about.
- Yeah, I mean,
I think that's what
Guided by Voices is about.
Like, all the little minutia
of, like, what they were doing.
And it had to do with,
I think, the backstory of the band,
the fact that these were just
sort of, like, regular guys
that were, like, Robert Power
was, like, a fourth-grade
schoolteacher at the time.
It seemed like he, in a way,
had kind of sort of given up
the idea that he was
ever going to be discovered,
that he was just, like,
producing, like, all these songs,
all these records in obscurity
with these other guys,
you know, like,
recording songs in basements
and, like, pumping out
all these, like, great songs
that, like, you felt like
no one was ever going to discover.
And similar to The Grateful Dead,
you know, there was so much music
that you could just dive into,
be obsessive about,
and study really closely.
I mean, I think part of the appeal
of a band like The Grateful Dead
is that there's just so much
backstory and so much music
to study that, like,
it kind of feels like
its own world, in a way.
And Guided by Voices was, like,
the first example of that
for me, personally.
And it was, like, a really
sort of attractive thing.
Steven, I feel like you
referenced this in the piece
you wrote, too, as sort of, like,
when they broke,
in terms of, like, the New York
kind of tastemakers and record labels
becoming aware of them
and getting excited about them,
when they kind of broke
on the indie scene,
it wasn't just they had, like,
one EP out, and people were like,
"Yeah, it's a cool EP."
They arrived on the scene
fully formed, with, like,
seven albums already
under their belt.
And, like, it wasn't even, like,
they were trying to get discovered.
This is what's so fascinating
to me about, like, their story.
And I do think about, like,
as someone, myself, who has sort of,
like, harbored artistic ambitions
throughout my adult life
and, like, for many, many years
was just sort of, like,
doing it to do it kind of thing.
I remember just being so, like,
struck by the fact that they were,
like, yeah, like,
old high school buddies
that would just make albums
every year to make albums.
Right.
And they weren't trying to get signed.
They weren't playing shows.
It was just, like, really, like,
for the love of the game stuff.
And I think that translated
in their music.
Yeah, I was saying this earlier.
Like, there's this thing in indie rock
where it's almost like
a found object type quality,
like, where there's a lot of
sort of emphasis on
digging up obscure things
for the sake of them being obscure.
But with "The Guide to My Voices,"
there was that aspect of it,
but it was also, like,
really accessible
and sort of down to earth.
It'd be like if Jandic
sounded like The Beatles, you know?
Like, it was that kind of thing.
Exactly.
Like, where it was kind of quirky,
but it was also, like,
very sort of blue-collar
and, like, accessible
at the same time.
And I think that--
so, like, for me, like,
it was, like, sort of
the best of both worlds.
I can't terrorize
I see terror in your eyes
As we go up, we go down
I can't socialize
I'll be institutionalized
As we go up, we go down
And see the truth, yeah
It's just a lie, oh
And see the truth, yeah
It's just a lie, oh
Ezra, what do you think of all this?
Is this tracking?
I mean, yeah, kind of.
What you guys described
is kind of what the music
sounds like to me.
Some of it's incredibly, like,
cassette, in the basement, lo-fi.
Except I think that
what makes it so much better
than a lot of just, like,
kind of generic lo-fi indie rock
is that there's this incredible
ear for melody.
And also, like, a very specific,
like, way with words,
like a lyrical sensibility.
Absolutely.
Like, I feel like, Jake,
with your famous iPhone note
of, like, phrases,
it seems so influenced
by Guided By Voices
because it's not, like,
obscure words,
but it's just, like, these
very specific type of, like,
combinations.
I don't know if you want
to read us any of that,
if that's too personal
because you're saving it
for songs.
But there's, like,
there's a certain type of,
like, two-word phrase
that strikes me as very
Guided By Voices
that I know just, like,
delights you to no end, Jake.
High-contrast produce.
[Laughter]
Kingdom in their eyes.
Right-wing children.
Not a goddamn wink.
Turn off the sunshine.
Ascended assistance.
Citrus wealth.
Oh, tequila moon.
[Laughter]
Dose the world.
Store-bought ninja.
On overgrown paths.
King Corgi.
Steroids encoding.
Just, like,
stuff that, like,
comes up in conversation
and you write it down.
Like, that's pure Bob Pollack.
It's a little bit stream
of consciousness,
but it's also, I think,
because it's somehow
rooted in the mundane.
It's so specific.
It's like, you know it
when you see it,
but even as you're
reading all of them,
I still find it hard
to, like, find the words
to, like, describe
what unites them.
Maybe it's, like,
some funny combination
of, like, it's, like,
very regal,
but also mundane.
Yes.
In the right-wing children.
Like...
[Laughter]
I think part of it, too,
you know, and Jake
was hitting on this,
that there's a very
pre-internet feeling
to that music where
right now we feel like
because of the internet,
everything is so stratified
that, like,
we all experience things
at exactly the same time
and that, like,
the idea of a culture
existing totally isolated
on its own
that can develop
without any kind of
outside influence,
it just seems like
it's hard to imagine now.
And I think part of, like,
what's appealing
of those records
is that, like,
this band
was outside of, like,
music culture
for such a long time.
Like, they existed...
In their own...
Yeah,
all their own universe.
Even in their own hometown,
like, no one really cared
what they were doing.
You know,
they were in basements
recording on their own.
It was totally isolated
from, like,
what else was going on
in the music world.
And there's something
about that I think
that is, like,
really fascinating,
especially now
where you feel like
it just seems impossible
for something like that
to happen.
Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask.
Is it impossible now?
'Cause I was gonna, like,
ask, are there any equivalents
of a Guided by Voices now?
Or is it impossible
because this thing
that you're describing
of suddenly some
tastemaker label people
get into something
and holy sh*t,
there's a whole world here.
It honestly...
The thing it reminds me of
more than anything,
hopefully this doesn't seem like
kind of condescending
or derogatory,
but it's outsider art.
It's like,
when you hear about,
you know,
a Henry Darger,
it's just like a weird comparison
'cause that's like...
But, you know,
these people who
truly had another job,
did something,
and then suddenly
the art world
discovers them
and it's not just,
yeah, it's not one painting,
it's a lifetime of work
and that makes the story
even more interesting.
And they're from another place,
totally isolated,
working by themselves,
not part of the big
media machine,
but that's the brutal part
of the internet.
It's like now everybody's
a part of it.
Imagine if, like,
that happened now.
There couldn't be
an instantaneous discovery
because you'd have,
suddenly you'd have
all these people
just like on Twitter
just being like,
"I've known those guys
for years.
First of all,
they're..."
Like, even,
whether or not it's true,
you'd have somebody being like,
"First of all,
they're not actually
blue collar.
The school that
Bob Pollard teaches at
is actually like
a really nice middle school."
And, um,
like, and then suddenly
he'd probably be on Twitter
just being like,
"Shut the f*** up!"
And it would just like,
it wouldn't read the same way.
But, yeah,
is that true?
Are there no equivalents
in the community right now?
There's got to be
somebody who's existing
like off the grid
or someone off the grid
who isn't
For sure.
just plugging things
into the internet immediately.
I feel like that is
in a way the future.
I wonder if there's like
a generation of artists
who aren't putting things
on Bandcamp,
aren't on social media,
who are just creating things
on their own
and then we're going to
hear about it
in like five or ten years.
I don't know.
That sounds,
that sounds dubious.
Well, no,
but I feel you.
That would take
so much intention.
But that's the catch,
is that anybody
who's doing it,
they kind of have to be doing it
for love of the game
because obviously
the internet is right there
for anybody who wants to use it.
If that stuff exists,
it's this weird paradox.
We can't say whether or not it exists
because we won't find out
for years.
Maybe we'll suddenly look back
and there'll be some like
incredible documentary
about something that was happening
like 2015 to 2020
that was this like group of people
who purposefully did nothing
on the internet
and they built a body of work
that stands up there
with the best indie rock albums
of the 2010s.
We just,
we'll never find out about it
until,
almost until it's too late
because they would need to have
such a specific mindset
to avoid the internet
which is right there
for them right now.
So yeah,
I wonder if it's true.
We'll have to,
let's put a little reminder
in our calendars
10 years from today.
Like,
was there any like
real off the grid
stuff happening in 2020?
I mean there must be
but yeah,
we wouldn't know.
That's the paradox.
We wouldn't know.
Or maybe stuff with just like
35 YouTube views.
Like there are people
that like make music
and put it on Bandcamp
that don't know anyone
and have no connections
and like I'm sure
there's thousands of bands
that have stuff on YouTube
and Bandcamp
that are just like
languishing
in the deluge.
I mean,
Ezra,
here's a funny thought experiment
when I was reading
Steven's piece again this morning.
I crunched the numbers
and Bob Pollard was 35
when GBV played
their first show in New York.
Whoa.
And you're 35, right?
I just turned 36 but...
Okay, you're 36.
So, okay.
You started Vampire Weekend
10 years ago.
You've been teaching
in New Jersey.
Yeah.
You have two children.
You've recorded seven albums.
[Laughter]
In your basement.
Exactly, in your basement.
It's a different aesthetic.
Right.
And then in 2020,
the CMJ Festival,
I guess COVID's not happening
in this fantasy.
Right.
It's like Vampire Weekend,
we want you to drive up,
play in front of all
of the cool New York bands,
play in front of, you know,
The Strokes and...
I mean, it's hard to believe.
That's what also makes it so unusual.
And I can imagine
why people feel passionately
about them
is because obviously
they got some great tunes.
But also, that story
is just so rare.
It's like...
It's wild.
You could count on one hand
the number of people
who built long, successful careers
and started in their 30s.
And that's pretty f***ed up
when you consider that
we live in an age of
extended adolescence.
Right.
A lot of people say that sympathetically.
There's been a lot of talk about
the millennial generation, man.
You got f***ed in the post-9/11 wars,
then you got that financial crash,
then you got the '08 financial crash,
and then you got COVID
over and over again.
There's opportunities
just out of reach.
Things getting f***ed up
just when you're getting
your s*** together.
So, understandably,
you see this school of thought
where people are like,
"Why are people,
30-something people,
obsessed with Marvel movies
and Harry Potter?"
Because, you know,
what else are we going to be into?
Home ownership?
That's a sentiment
you see on the internet a lot.
Where people are just like...
You know, it's kind of part
of the OK, boomer thing.
Where it's like, boomers,
you guys had it easy.
There's cheap money.
You were living
in the land of plenty.
We're not.
So, like, let us, you know,
spend all day on the internet.
You sometimes see
that school of thought.
Obviously, that's a bit of...
I'm panning in broad strokes,
but people say s*** like that.
So, you would think that
in this era,
because there's a bigger audience
of 30-something people
who spend a lot of time
on the internet
and are still, like,
very engaged with culture,
you'd think we'd be seeing, like,
way more Bob Pollards.
Way more 35-year-olds
popping off.
And yet, I would almost argue
that we're seeing less.
I mean, I think part of it
was just, like,
the value of that era
where people were looking
for the obscure hero
that came out of nowhere.
And in a way,
Guided By Voices
were, like, the ultimate example
of that.
That this is the greatest band
you've never heard of
and they have a huge back catalog
of records
that are all really great
and they're gonna blow your mind.
You know, I think at that time,
like, people wanted to hear
a story like that.
And I don't know if, like,
necessarily we live in an era,
like, where people want to hear
a story like that.
At that time,
there was a certain currency
put on, like, obscure things
being great.
Like, of course this is great.
Of course you haven't heard of it
because this is the kind of thing
that we value.
And that was, like,
a very sort of indie rock value,
I think, of, like, the mid-'90s.
And, you know, I think, like,
in music now,
I don't know if they, like,
necessarily are looking for,
like, a guy from Ohio
who's 35 years old
and is a schoolteacher.
You know, we're not looking
for, like, that to be the genius,
you know, that's gonna, like,
deliver, like, the next
great masterpiece for us.
♪ Decide now ♪
♪ Decide now ♪
♪ Before you continue ♪
♪ The list is complete ♪
♪ Without your permission ♪
♪ I finally know how ♪
♪ I finally can quit ♪
♪ And ancient ideas ♪
♪ Are over my love ♪
-Ezra, I want to run something by you.
'Cause, like, I have a theory, in a way,
about "Vampire Weekend,"
like, on your first record.
'Cause I feel like, in a way,
you guys, in a way, like,
were sort of, like,
the anti-Strokes on that record,
where, like, you look at the Strokes,
they're wearing, like,
very sort of, like,
rock-and-roll costumes.
They're wearing, like,
the leather jackets.
-Right. -They're singing about,
like, standard rock-and-roll stuff.
And, in a way, I feel like
when you guys came around,
you were sort of doing, like,
the anti-thing of that,
like, where we're not gonna wear that.
We're gonna sort of foreground
the things about the Strokes
that they're maybe trying to hide
by wearing this rock-and-roll costume stuff.
And we're gonna, like, talk about
the things that they're trying to hide
in their songs.
And we're gonna bring that sort of
to the forefront in our songs,
like, on our first record.
Is there any validity to that?
I feel like there's maybe
sort of a reactionary thing,
almost, like, 'cause you guys
were another New York band,
but you weren't doing
the rock-and-roll thing.
You were sort of, like,
subverting that in a way.
It's not a crazy thing to suggest.
It's always been a little funny to me
when, like, a book like
"Meet Me in the Bathroom" comes out
and Vampire Weekend's presented
as being, like, part of this, like,
next generation in the lineage
of New York rock bands.
'Cause I'm just like, you know,
when you're just, like,
a music listener,
and then you're making music,
there's something about --
it's hard to feel like,
"Well, we're the next entry."
I never thought that way.
I always felt like we're so --
this weird thing on our own trip,
and obviously have a relationship
to New York, but it's --
and the band started in New York,
but I never thought of us
as being like, "Well, hopefully
we're gonna be the next big band
out of New York.
We better shake -- cook the books."
But what you're saying,
there's definitely something to it
because the truth is --
and I don't want to speak
for all of them, but obviously --
and I know a lot of guys
in the Strokes,
and I think they're really cool.
I like them a lot.
But, you know, just to put it
in perspective,
so these are these guys
live in New York.
I was born in New York,
multi-generation New York family,
but then I grew up in Jersey
because it's kind of like
the lame middle-class thing
that, like, some New York parents
did to kind of just, like,
give their kids, like,
a little backyard or something.
So I felt very kind of like
whatever middle-class,
excited to get back to the land
of my birth, the big city.
So when I see the Strokes,
and I'm reading about them,
and they're like --
they like television and Lou Reed.
I'm like, "I like that [bleep]."
And they wear leather jackets,
and I'm kind of like, "Eh."
And it's like --
and Julian and Albert
met at Swiss boarding school.
And to me, that is the most
interesting thing about these guys.
That is so exotic.
-But I see what Stephen's saying
because, Ezra, it's funny.
I knew you --
I met you a year or two
before "Vampire Weekend"
was a thing.
And I remember when you guys
kind of broke, like, really quickly,
and there was the whole thing
of, like, you guys --
it was like you guys
had, like, a preppy look.
-Right. -Right.
-And that drove people up a wall.
And I was like, "That's funny."
It does seem like the deliberate
opposite of, like,
the leather jacket, Lou Reed,
downtown New York vibe.
Like, you guys were like --
-Yeah. I mean --
-How much of that was just,
like, a joke?
-Mm.
In a way, I think all clothes
are a joke.
So it's --
in that sense, it's 100% a joke.
But I really did feel, like,
attracted to --
you know, for me,
it's probably half a joke
and half actual, like,
aspirational taste.
You know, I had this old pair
of boat shoes.
I had some thrift store
Lacoste shirts.
And I did kind of feel like,
"This is cool."
I thought, "This is interesting."
But then I also felt like,
making the whole band's vibe
preppy, I did, in fact,
think that was funny.
So, like, you know,
the first video we ever made
for "Mans to Roof,"
we were --
-Very provocative.
-We're sailing around on a boat
and, you know,
wearing, like, preppy stuff.
But then we're sailing around,
like, this, like,
really funky-ass, like,
area between, like,
industrial New Jersey
and the city.
So, like, I thought
that was funny,
that kind of interplay.
So, yeah, I think --
-Yeah.
-I thought, contextually,
it was funny.
And I legitimately have
a soft spot for kind of
preppy clothes.
But I guess the funny part
was kind of, like,
playing into it.
-Yeah.
-♪ I see a mansard roof ♪
♪ Through the trees ♪
♪♪
♪ I see a salty message ♪
♪ Written in the eaves ♪
♪ The ground beneath my feet ♪
♪ The odd garbage and concrete ♪
♪ Now the tops of buildings ♪
♪ I can see them, too ♪
♪♪
♪ I see a mansard roof ♪
♪ Through the trees ♪
♪♪
♪ I see a salty message ♪
♪ Written in the eaves ♪
♪ The ground beneath my feet ♪
♪ The odd garbage and concrete ♪
♪ Now the tops of buildings ♪
♪ I can see them, too ♪
♪ Time crisis ♪
-I kind of, like, look at that
first Vampire Weekend record
as being, like, a photo negative
of the first Strokes record.
You know, like, the Strokes were,
like, sort of dark
in 20th century,
and Vampire Weekend was, like,
21st century and, like, very bright
and, like, referencing all sorts
of different kinds of music
that, like, were outside
of that sort of...
-Right.
-...stereotypical New York canon
type of music.
-I definitely thought about
the bands of the era.
When I first suggested
this idea of starting
Vampire Weekend,
I had a few key things linked up
with the other guys.
Everybody added to it.
And, you know, there's a few things.
I made this kind of fake manifesto.
One of the things was, like,
no disco beat,
'cause that was that --
At the time, when I thought
of really popular bands,
I thought of Franz Ferdinand,
who, you know, they did
their damn thing.
They had that famous --
They had that disco rock beat,
which just kind of makes you
think of the '70s Stones.
And the way that I thought about it
was never, like, a negative thing
with any of those bands,
because I admire all of them --
Strokes, Interpol, Ye,
as there's so much great music
from those bands.
I think the way that I thought
about it was kind of like,
they saw the last step
that could be taken
with kind of 20th-century rock,
guitar rock [bleep]
and that was that.
They're at the penthouse, man.
Like, they took the elevator
to the penthouse.
That's it.
I'm not gonna go back
in that elevator
and just jam the button,
imagining something's
gonna happen.
-Inception, a movie people
used to reference a lot
and don't really anymore,
there's, like, always this thing
about, like, well,
if you dream inside the dream,
you can do one dream
inside the dream,
but once you get to three dreams
inside the dream,
it becomes very dangerous.
And there's this, like,
part of that movie where it's,
like, Leonardo DiCaprio has to go
10 dream levels deep,
and they're like, "Bro,
nobody's gone that deep."
And I think there's something
similar with culture,
that when you're, like,
one or two levels removed
from the original thing,
such as rock and roll,
or even four levels,
there still are new insights
and ways that you can
express something fresh.
You know, even The Stones,
they were copying
a lot of rock stuff,
but they did something
incredibly special and unique.
Even when you get to the
third or fourth level,
where you're referencing
a copy of a copy,
you still can tell your own story
and be specific,
but there is a point
where you hit the penthouse,
you hit the ceiling,
and it's done,
and every last interesting thing
has been, like,
wrung out of it.
And I think that's a big part
of being a musician
is just kind of recognizing,
even when you admire something,
is there anything left
to say in this
that I could add
to the conversation?
And I think there was
a feeling then
where it's like,
in our first record,
is, like, to me,
our most, like, actual,
like, reads as a rock record,
because it had the energy
of a rock record,
but it was so important to us
to not have two guitars,
to have keyboards,
and to add strings,
and to add these
different rhythms,
just 'cause, like,
we just knew we had
to look somewhere else.
And again,
this was me really admiring
all that music,
just not seeing
a path forward.
Right.
It was confusing
for a lot of people.
And I think it's just, like,
the reference points, too.
Like, you know,
you can only refer to, like,
the Velvet Underground
and the Ramones
and television
for so long before--
you can only reiterate
that stuff for, you know,
so many times
before you're not gonna have
anything original anymore,
and then you have to introduce
other reference points
into the music,
and I feel like,
like, with your record,
and I think there were
other people at that time, too,
like, in the late aughts
that just brought in
other reference points
into the music.
Dirty projectors.
That dirty projectors.
Exactly.
We're not gonna be dark,
grimy, you know,
that sort of, like,
New York cliche thing.
Yeah.
Like, it's gonna be bright.
It's gonna be vibrant.
It's gonna be--
this is gonna be humor.
It's gonna be this.
This is gonna be R&B influences.
It's gonna be hip-hop influences.
All these other kinds of things
that had to be brought in
just to revitalize it.
You know what's funny, Stephen?
I remember in your classic rock book,
you thought that
that Nine Inch Nails record--
was that from '99
was the last classic rock record?
Yeah, the Fragile.
Maybe--
Is this it?
Maybe it's for Strokes,
the updated version.
[laughs]
Of the book.
It's funny,
'cause I think the Strokes
ended up being more famous
than they were popular.
Yeah, and that's a great point
that you make in the Kid A book,
which, by the way,
I've been talking about on the show
'cause I just read the early copy.
It's not coming out 'til September?
Yeah.
Okay, so mark your calendars, September.
Stephen Hyden's Kid A book is dropping.
You tell me if this is giving away too much,
but just one thing I love about this book
is that Kid A has always been
a very important album to me.
It's always been a very interesting album to me,
partially because of, you know,
just being a cool album,
and also partially because--
and we're about to talk about
Father the Bride a little bit.
Not comparing it to Kid A.
Don't freak out.
But I'm just saying that--
Let's do it.
I'm fascinated by fourth albums,
because at the end of the day,
a huge part of time,
'cause I love just, like,
talking about music.
I love making it,
but I love thinking about it.
I had very specific feelings
about what a first, second, and third album
should mean in a band's career
and how they speak to each other
and how they speak to the audience,
and then I had some time off
to really think hard again,
what does a fourth album mean?
And I think fourth albums,
at the very least,
are always turning points.
A good fourth album is always a turning point.
For Vampire Weekend,
our fourth album was a turning point
in more ways than one.
And I've always been fascinated by Kid A
as one of the great
fourth album turning points ever.
And to appreciate a turning point,
you can't just look at the point.
You have to look at what happened
before and after,
and that's one thing I love about your book,
is that you talk about Radiohead's--
In fact, it's a little bit like
The Last Dance.
You bring the audience in
at a crucial point,
and then you're rewinding,
because you're like,
"But hold on.
"But hold that thought.
"Let's go back and contextualize this."
And so in the book,
people might be surprised,
but I think interested to find out,
you talk about the Strokes and Limp Bizkit,
and you talk about the moment
that was starting to emerge
when Kid A came out
was also a moment of kind of bifurcation,
where whatever flimsy idea
of rock fandom used to exist
was over,
because, of course--
And I know somebody's gonna be listening
who's like,
"Well, I liked Linkin Park and the Strokes."
I'm sure you did.
I bet somebody did.
But in a broad sense,
those audiences didn't have
that much to say to each other.
And Chester Bennington
always seemed like cool,
rest in peace.
He seemed like a very open-minded guy.
I bet he was listening to Strokes
and thinking about them
and listening to Radiohead.
But it was this moment
when these three big, important bands
that you talk about
in this section of the book--
The Strokes, Linkin Park, and Radiohead--
three iconic bands
of varying degrees of success
in that moment.
They're all just so different.
They're telling such different stories.
The idea that those three bands
were the same genre
is like the center cannot hold.
The Falconer cannot hear the Falcon
in early 2000s rock.
Yeah.
I like that you brought this up, though,
in the context of Father of the Bride,
because I think that is
a very apt comparison in a way.
I think that it was clearly
a transitional record for you guys.
Well, in some ways.
It changed the kind of band that you are.
Personally, I'll just say
that's my favorite Vampire Weekend record.
Oh, damn.
I love that record.
I'm a sucker for records
that are sort of sprawling.
It has 18 songs,
lots of different kinds of songs on it,
so I appreciate that aspect of it.
It has 18 songs,
just like XL on Main Street,
so it has that thing to it.
But yeah, I really love that aspect.
It seems like it definitely changed
the type of band that you are.
Well, I wonder.
Obviously, it'll be, again,
as a student of rock and discography obsessive,
obviously, I've got a lot of time
on my hands to think now,
like everybody.
So I think a lot about,
and I'm spending time writing
and things like that,
so I think a lot about,
well, album five and six, man,
that's going to really contextualize four.
Right now, four is this open-ended thing,
and especially in the case of Vampire Weekend.
I was thinking about this
because we were going to talk
kind of like our anniversary episode,
that I was kind of remembering some stuff
that I said when we did our episode
when the album first came out.
And I think there was some point
where Jake, me, you, and Arielle
were talking about our expectations and fears.
And I know one thing I said at that time was,
I just hope that people listen to it
at least knowing that every decision
was purposeful,
which in some ways seems obvious.
Of course, you listen to a record,
the artists made decisions.
But with us, with a kind of a lineup change
and all this time passing,
reentering the world
at a kind of strange moment
where the genre that we're associated with,
for better or for worse,
indie rock is kind of like,
the stock's at an all-time low.
And just like,
there's a funny moment to come back.
And I just had this feeling like,
well, in my role in the band,
I've always been so obsessed
with telling the story.
Even when we were basically kids in college
and I wanted to start the band,
one of the few rules I made was like,
I choose the songs.
It doesn't matter if I start it, you start it.
I need to be that curator
because it goes along with that sense of like,
what does each album say?
And even a great song
could say the wrong thing on album two
or if it, you know, or album three.
So I hope that with album four,
I just wanted people to hear it
as being like part four of the story.
And understandably,
with all the changes that I'm talking about,
probably not everybody,
well, I've been very pleasantly surprised
how many people I think like,
understood the album as I wanted it to be understood.
But I think no matter what,
you're in this funny position
where some people hear it as like chapter four,
where's the story going?
Is it going to a new place?
And then other people are like,
chapter one, you better sell me again.
And I'm just like, damn.
And maybe,
maybe it's not contextualized
until you see where the story goes.
But either way, yeah,
it's a transitional moment.
And the only thing that I'll say,
obviously, Van Fruyken and Radiohead,
very, very different bands.
They're one of the greatest bands of all time.
I always have to give disclaimers
anytime I reference the greats.
But one thing I did think about
working on a transitional record,
where I was like,
when I think of Kid A,
I think that's a rock band
who came off their most critically acclaimed album
and decided to do some different (beep)
that might alienate some of the faithful.
And for them,
that was a certain type of like,
I guess, experimentalism,
influenced by warp records
and modern classical music
and things like that.
I knew that that wouldn't be our vibe.
But when I thought about that record,
I did think,
sometimes I was like,
what would our version of that be?
What's our version of going into a new place
that some people are going to love
and some people might not?
And for me, it was like,
'cause sometimes I felt like
when bands get a fork in the road,
either you can go big and pop
where you're kind of like,
we're going big now.
We're going to try to tear up the charts.
And I was like, hell no,
that's not us.
And then the other version where it's like,
or you start like masking your voice
and getting into weird vibes.
And I was like, eh, maybe one day.
I like that, but that's not us.
And I felt like maybe for us,
the path that made the most sense
was a type of focus on songwriting,
a crunchiness, a jamminess.
Somehow I felt like I saw two paths
that didn't make sense to me.
And then I saw this path
and it like really made sense.
So I thought about Kid A in that aspect.
And then of course I couldn't help but think,
am I insane for having,
being obsessed with this double album thing?
Like Radiohead, the greatest band
of the modern era,
they almost made a double album.
And then they correctly decided
to front load Kid A
and then push this second one to the next year.
Like, is that what I should be doing?
And then I felt like, you know what?
They did the right thing there,
but we're just on different trips.
And for us, this album needs to be shaggier.
And even if you lose a few people,
'cause they're just like, it's too long.
What? You should edit it down.
I'm just like, eh.
Those are the two ways that Kid A crossed my mind
in making this album.
- Radiohead's radical move
was to make an anti-rock record,
and your radical move was to make a rock record.
You know?
(laughing)
And that was the radical thing to do in 2019,
to kind of embrace more of a classic rock type vibe
on at least some of the songs on the record.
And maybe that's why I like it,
the crunchiness of it.
But it's funny because I feel like
you were able to do that
and also still retain sort of the pop feel.
I feel like Vampire Weekend is still one of the only
rock bands that a lot of outlets
will still write about and take seriously
in a way that they won't take
a lot of other rock bands seriously.
They'll still group Vampire Weekend in
with the big pop stars of the day,
but we're still able to make a record
that I think subverted a lot of
what pop music avoids a lot of the time.
- It turns out rock's not played out, dawg.
(laughing)
- Maybe rock's not that played out.
♪ Boy, boy ♪
♪ 2021, what do you think about me? ♪
♪ I could wear the heat, but I shouldn't wait three ♪
♪ Boy, I don't wanna be ♪
♪ Boy, mm-mm-mm-mm ♪
♪ 2021, what do you think about us? ♪
♪ Copper goes green, steel beams go rust ♪
♪ Boy, it's a matter of ♪
♪ Boy ♪
- I do think, and again, I need to say over and over again,
not comparing us to Radiohead, but I do think any artist--
- Stop comparing yourself to Radiohead.
Goddamn it, Ezra.
- Bro, I'm just saying, man, I'm just saying.
You know me and Tom, no.
But what I'm saying is I think what all artists
have in common with their fourth album is like,
this is how I felt making "Father of the Bride."
And so when I read your book, I couldn't help--
certain things resonate with me when you talk about a band
who achieved something they'd been dreaming of
with "OK Computer," which was on a much higher level
than "Modern Vampires," but the similarity would be like
a respect that at times seemed elusive in the early days.
And then, you know, what do you do after that?
And I think there's something that happens a lot of times.
If a band makes it to a fourth album,
it probably means things went pretty well
with one through three.
Maybe you even built to a crescendo with three.
That's the best type of story to tell.
Or at least you got more respect, or something went up and up.
And then you get to this fourth album,
then you're at this funny place where, you know,
even if you turn out albums quickly, like every two years,
five, six years, that's a full era in music.
That's a generation.
That's more than a generation.
If a generation is, you know, of high school is four years,
or even if you go for the tight eight of high school
plus college is eight years, easily,
a lot of people do three albums in, you know,
we did it in five, you know, but it's like an era.
And then you get back to work, and next thing you know,
it's six, seven, eight years.
A lot of times passed since your debut.
So you get to this weird point where it's like,
the terrain has shifted.
So, like, you know, whatever ideas and values
you based your early work on has changed.
In our case, you know, I couldn't see the land as clearly
because there wasn't like this wave of like,
New York bands and who's hot and who's not,
like that just didn't exist.
So that's shifted.
And then you're older, so your things you care about
shift a little bit.
And then if you're an artist, in the sense that you have
like artistic inclinations, you have that,
where it's just like, you're done with certain things.
You said certain things and you want to say new things.
And I think a lot of times those three things
combine on a fourth album, and figuring out how to like,
thread that needle, or like the metaphor I've gone back to
is like land that plane where it's like,
your artistic inclination, you know, for me,
like one question that we got, Jake, was somebody being like,
"How has Jake and Time Crisis influenced you?"
And I've said that in a lot of interviews from the start.
I'd be like, "Richard Pictures 100% influenced me
because it was the first time in years I saw a rock band
having fun and playing guitar music."
And I was like, "This is a great vibe."
So that absolutely influenced me.
So my artistic inclination is like,
all this other shit people are saying is cool right now,
f***ing sucks. Richard Pictures, that's the wave, man.
So, you know, there's a version of an album
where the left wing of the plane is suddenly going like,
hardcore towards just like, RP, you know, dead vibes.
And of course I know that that wouldn't be Vampire Weekend
if it was just like, really trying to, you know,
like write a version of Sugaree, inspired by RP.
So, you know, it's like the left wing is taking you towards like,
Sugaree rewrite territory.
Then you have this other impulse that's also about like,
survival, where you're like, you know,
that's part of my job as like, the leader of the band
has always been a little bit about like, making decisions
to just make sure we get to keep doing what we're doing,
like not falling off.
And then of course, you're trying to land on familiar terrain.
So I think almost everybody has some version of it.
Us taking six years off and having a lineup change
probably made our version of going into a fourth album
even starker. But no matter what,
that three to four transition, it's fundamentally different
than one to two or two to three.
And so, you know, I was thinking as I was reading your book,
I'm like, this might be the first time I just read a whole book
about a fourth album. And it just so happens with Radiohead,
theirs came out literally the year that the millennium changed.
And it's like the year 2000 and all these things changing.
But you know, these are uncertain times as well.
Well, and you know, I don't know how deep into the weeds
we want to get about this, but I mean,
you talk about like the landscape changing.
I mean, I think in terms of like music criticism,
to say the landscape changed from 2013 to 2019,
it doesn't even begin to like really do justice
to like how much changed.
I mean, there's like a whole different ideology in place,
basically, you know, from 2013 to 2019.
And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about before
with Banded by Voices, the idea of just like what indie rock is,
I think was totally reinvented in that time.
So for you guys to navigate that is pretty impressive
because there's not a lot of bands from the late aughts
that are still putting out records right now
that are getting like a lot of press and like are doing really well
and like are sort of at the forefront of conversation, you know.
In a way, it was like, you know, 15 years in music critic years.
That's how it felt to me a little bit.
And I think at a certain point, to go back to my playing metaphor,
like I'm a music lover. I stay up on new music.
I know what's going on to some extent.
My taste often leans towards like,
I'd probably rather like listen to some light in the attic reissue
than every little new thing that came out.
But, you know, I'm at least like cognizant of that
where I'm like my taste leans old, but I love hearing about new music
and I love talking with different people in my life about what they listen to.
And sometimes their taste is drastically different.
They might, you know, so I like to stay up on stuff.
But there were times with this album to go back to the playing metaphor
where if I felt like I needed to throw one thing that I cared about,
in this case, like relevance and making music that was in dialogue
with popular, critically acclaimed music of the moment,
that was that one precious thing that I knew I had to throw off
the plane for the weight.
When we were making the first three albums,
I was like hyper aware of what was popular and relevant and stuff.
And at some point I needed to just turn that part of my brain off
because I was like, it might not serve us anymore.
And I do think that's another thing with fourth albums
and like my personal philosophy about fourth albums is like,
if you were lucky enough that your first three records
were like part of a cultural moment in some way,
big or small, but just like part of the conversation.
At a certain point, you have to recognize you can't do that forever.
Maybe you'll be lucky and you'll have it.
At a certain point, your fourth album is also a declaration of being like,
we're on our own trip.
It doesn't have to be a disavowal of what came before
because you need continuity, but it also has to be a little bit of like,
one thing that I've thought about a lot, and I think actually,
maybe we talked about a little bit in our epic New York Times interview,
although that got edited down.
I think with the fourth album, you have to finally stop being like,
we need our audience to be as big as possible.
Like, please listen to us.
I'm so scared of going back to being a teacher.
You know, it can't be that here of like, at a certain point,
with your fourth record, you also have to be like cultivating the audience you want.
And that's where you asked me a question in that interview about like,
is the some of the jam band stuff like a contrarian streak?
And I was like, I don't think that's contrarian
because I'm just like legitimately into that and I love finding ways
that we can intersect with it.
But when I thought about that choice of could this album be edited down to one album?
Of course it could. I know exactly what I would do.
Just like, I cut track one, hold you now.
That's going to throw so many people for a loop.
It's a country duet with a sentence.
F*** that, Harmony Hall, track one, easy.
From there, I know exactly what to slash.
I can make this type 10 song album.
I get rid of anything that feels too genre-y.
That might make people be like, what is this country?
What is this jazz? Okay, no problem.
I hate this.
I know, I hate it too.
You can't cut hold you now. Anyway, yeah.
I know, I know. But look, 100%.
I knew this would happen and I'm sure it did.
Well, I haven't seen anybody say this in particular, but I can only imagine.
There must have been somebody who listened to Hold You Now
and hears Danielle's voice coming in.
Danielle, incredible singer.
Like, I think one of the best front people of modern dance.
But they hear this voice, I don't know who this is.
What TV show is this?
Did I miss a season?
I knew that would throw people for a loop.
Whereas Harmony Hall is a little more in that sweet spot of being like,
sounding like old vampire meets some new crunchy.
Sure.
I know the reason why you think I ought to stay.
Funny how you're telling me on my wedding day.
Crying in those rumpled sheets like someone's about to die.
You just watch your mouth when talking about the father of the bride.
Why's your heart grown heavy, boy, when things were feeling light?
Turning this June morning into some dark judgment night.
This ain't the end of nothing much. It's just another round.
I can't carry you forever, but I can hold you now.
But when I think about, well, is there anything contrarian about this record?
I wouldn't say contrarian, but I would say,
when you make an 18 song album,
you know that there's going to be a crew of people who,
you know, hopefully like every song.
I hope there are, and it means a lot when I hear, like,
Steven, you or other people tell me it's their favorite album.
Not because, because I want every album to be somebody's favorite album.
And I know that 18 songs is a lot to ask of a listener.
But so some people are going to like every song. That's great.
And then I think other people are going to hear songs like
"Hold You Now" or "Married in a Gold Rush" or "My Mistake,"
"We Belong Together," even like "Stranger," a kind of sweet song.
I know that there's going to be people who hear that **** and be like,
"F*** this. I didn't sign up for this." Okay.
But then there's this other group of people in the middle who don't like every song,
but they're down for the ride.
And those people, that's who, like, I really appreciate and want to cultivate,
because as an artist, it doesn't get better than that.
Somebody listens to your record and is like, "You know what, man?
You went for this jazzy, weird ballad. That one wasn't for me,
but I **** with you for doing that."
That's the type of fan you want.
It's the fan who can't even fathom why we would put
"Hold You Now" or "Married in a Gold Rush" in the beginning of this record.
The fan who can't even fathom that, I'm sure there'll be more concise records
in the future they might appreciate.
But we're at some point where our sensibility is pretty different.
But there's this other type of fan who might not like every single song,
but they're just kind of like, "Hey, man, I'm down."
Because I think about the double albums that I've loved,
like "London Calling," a very influential record in my life,
in my dad's record collection, always fascinated by it.
And I really feel like I didn't get deep into some songs,
some deep, deep, like, side D songs for years.
I think I was so taken with the songs that I loved off the bat
that these songs that I thought were random, like "Revolution Rock" or something,
I didn't have time for them until years later.
And in that sense, a double album can sometimes feel like two different albums
because, of course, you might listen to the whole thing,
but you only have time or brain waves,
you know, enough brain space to f*** with half of it first.
You only have so much room to give the songs a proper chance.
You know what I'm saying?
I would just say that for all artists,
there exists a point where what people respond to is their sense of self.
You know, does this person have a sense of who they are
and a sense of confidence in who they are?
It's not about being relevant in the pop sense.
And in a way, if you're trying too hard to be relevant in the pop sense,
if you're at a certain age, that just looks like pandering.
- Yes, big time. - It kind of looks pathetic if you're doing that.
Whereas, you know, if you look at someone like Neil Young or Bob Dylan,
it's like they know who they are.
They're going to do their thing no matter what they do.
And if you love those artists, you love what they do.
Or Bruce Springsteen or any of the great legacy artists that we could name.
And I think that that's an ideal place for an artist to get to.
It's like, no, this artist, they know who they are, this band, they know who they are.
And we love that they know who they are.
And I feel that way for myself in a way as a writer.
Like, I don't want to look like I'm ever trying to pretend that I'm younger than I am.
Or I'm trying to pretend to be something that I'm not.
Because I think that people can tell that, you know,
if you're pretending to be something that you're not.
Especially as you get older.
You know, you enter middle age.
The tough part about it, though, for any kind of artist,
a journalist, a musician, painter, whatever.
And this is where it becomes a little bit of 3D chess.
Because our whole lives we've been watching, you know, sitcoms and after school specials
and reading quotes that basically tell us a lot of our problems will be solved by just being ourselves.
In one sense it is good advice, but sometimes it's hard to interpret.
Because I think something also happens where things get kind of complicated.
Where you know that you've got to be yourself.
And you've got to keep it real.
But there's a word that I've noticed has become very trendy lately.
Parasocial.
Have you guys noticed the uptick in parasocial on the internet?
Yeah.
So my understanding is parasocial, like people refer to it with a relationship that's kind of one-sided.
Where maybe you watch a TV show, you listen to a podcast,
and you feel like you know the person really well.
Because you hear them talk all the time.
And yet it's obviously not the same as the social relationship you have with a friend or family member
or somebody in your same community.
People talk about parasocial, and I don't think there's anything wrong with parasocial relationships.
You can learn a lot from them too.
People often use it derogatorily to talk about like idol worship with politicians.
But anyway, people keep talking about parasocial stuff.
But because there's this strange relationship that you have,
you can be yourself and be your authentic self,
but you also have to be okay with the fact that some people will see you do something
and say they're not being their authentic self.
I know them. I've read their sh*t for a long time.
I've listened to their sh*t for a long time.
This is not them.
But that's something that you have to be okay with.
And that I think, for me, with this record, I also had to make my...
It was like a little bit of a plunge, where I was like,
"This record is different."
To me, I see the link between one and two, two and three, three and four.
I see it clear as day.
I hope other people will see it too.
But I also had a feeling like, there's some people who just elements of this album,
the length, some of the references, it might just turn them off.
If it did, I think, luckily, we brought in enough new people that it evened out or even grew.
But that was a real fear of mine.
And it's why it is so hard to continue to tell a story,
because as much as you earn the freedom to take the story to new places,
you have to be okay with the fact that when you're just being yourself,
that some people will think you're not.
Haven't you dealt with that from the beginning, dude?
When you came out with the Preppy Clothes, people were like,
"These guys are leaning into this Preppy image."
You went to this Ivy League school.
- Well, that's... - This seems like a deliberate...
And also, that's the funny thing about time too,
is that once something's been around and is contextualized by subsequent albums,
it just lives in a different place.
You can imagine for me, when I was a young frontman of a band's first album,
and you have all these people, in my feelings, misinterpreting me and what I was saying,
misinterpreting the band and the sense of humor.
The idea that one day that album...
And I knew we had success with the album,
but the idea that that album, which to me seemed divisive,
and so many people hated or whatever,
the idea that that first album would one day become an important touchstone
for how people thought of us, it's strange.
If you were just a fan and you listened to that album, you're just like,
"Oh, cool. Yeah, that first Vampire Weekend album reminded me of that summer when I did this or that."
Whereas for me, I'll always carry with me...
I don't want to say trauma, that's way too strong of a word,
but I always carry with me those weird memories of that album being divisive or something.
The idea of that album being a touchstone, it's strange.
I would just say that it's inevitable that people are not...
There's always going to be some people who aren't going to be on board with whatever you do.
I think that's inevitable no matter what decision you make.
I think what's clear, though, is that if something's corny,
I feel like it's pretty obvious right away.
I think people will recognize it as being corny right away.
I think in the case of Father of the Bride,
you put out Harmony Hall and there's a guitar tone on there that people liken to a jammy
or a Grateful Dead-sounding guitar tone.
We can break down whether that's reductive or not.
But people could have said, "Oh, that doesn't work."
But I think it's pretty clear that it did work.
I think what you were able to bring into that record,
the influences that were unique to Father of the Bride,
I think you integrated them into the aesthetic of Vampire Weekend pretty well.
If they didn't work, it would have been clear from the get-go that it didn't work.
You know what I mean?
But I think they clearly were thoughtfully integrated into what you were already doing
in a way that it was different, but it was also compatible with what people associated with that band.
Yeah, well, I appreciate that. That's how it feels now.
Although, I went in with very low expectations to putting out this record
because, again, six years away, even though I really believed in the music,
and in some ways, I think I really enjoyed the rollout,
some of the visuals we did with the bugs on the white background.
I just loved the new live band. It was really an exciting time.
But even then, I wasn't sure if it was a success, probably until we played The Garden.
Because I knew we were having good shows, and I felt glad that the album went to number one.
But there was something about, I needed that big hometown show that was actually our biggest show ever.
I needed that show, and to see all the songs side by side.
I think that night we played 11 songs from Father of the Bride.
It's like a sh*tload.
And to feel like it was a special night, and so many of the songs were from the new record.
I remember feeling the same way, actually, with Modern Vampires.
I knew, like, unbelievably, this is a really good song.
I think this is one of the best choruses I've ever written.
The mix of everything, it just felt good. And I knew there was so much interesting stuff about that song.
And it's an unbelievable song. It's a high-energy song, and it's got a fun chorus.
And there's some amazing arrangement and production stuff.
And yet, I remember at the time, when we were working on it, and starting to practice it with the band,
I was just like, I couldn't see it ever being a song that made the crowd as happy as A-Punk.
I knew it was good. I knew it felt like the right next move.
And yet at the time, I was just like, "Ah."
And, you know, to be fair, A-Punk still is our biggest song.
That's another thing we have in common with Radiohead.
Not that I'm comparing us to Radiohead.
That's what I was going to say.
But one thing we have in common is that our biggest song is one from our first album that,
as discussed on Time Crisis, most people would not--
well, in our case, they would say, is not the thesis statement of the band,
although "Creep" interestingly intersects with a lot of Radiohead s***.
But it's like, we do have this one song that's so much more well-known than the others,
which to a hardcore fan probably wouldn't even go in their top 10 favorite songs,
and yet it's such an important song.
So maybe we're also in a funny position where,
if I'm-- just like "Unbelievers" and "Harmony Hall,"
these are such important songs to our career,
and when we play them at a big hometown show like the Garden,
they're such important parts of the set list, and I'm so glad we have them.
And yet we'll always be in this funny position where A-Punk, that's the song that goes off.
That's so funny.
It just is what it is.
I'm so much more psyched on "Harmony Hall" and "Unbelievers" than A-Punk.
We took a vow in summertime
Now we find ourselves in late December
I believe that New Year's Eve will be
The perfect time for their great surrender
But they don't remember
Anger wants a voice
Voices won't sing
Singers harmonize
'Til they can't hear anything
I thought that I was free
From all that questioning
But every time a problem is
Another one begins
And the stone walls of Harmony Hall bear witness
Anybody with a willing mind
Can never forgive the sight
Of wicked snakes inside a place
You thought was dignified
I don't wanna live like this
But I don't wanna die
I think it's cool though that you guys have a creep.
You know? That you have a song that's like way bigger.
You know, 'cause I think like, a band needs that one song
that is both your legacy and the song you run away from.
That's funny.
And I don't feel like you have run away from A-Punk in the way that Radiohead ran away from Creep for like a long time.
The irony of it is that we probably should run away from A-Punk
whereas Radiohead running away from Creep always seems strange
'cause Creep is actually just like a beautiful song.
It's tender, it's emotional.
There's a reason why people love hearing different versions of it.
Whereas with us, to me, Creep sitting side by side with a late period Radiohead ballad,
I see the DNA. I see the sentiment.
I see the way it's...
Whereas for us, A-Punk is like, compared to like, I don't know, Unbearably White.
Another song that I consider to be like an important song for Vampire Weekend.
And it's tonally so different.
You know, compare that to like, the way I sing on A-Punk.
It's so different.
But maybe we're just more crowd pleasers at the end of the day.
Well, I think too, like Radiohead just came up in a different time, like where...
I mean, Creep was like a huge song.
I mean, it really was like one of the, you know, big alt-rock songs of its time.
Yeah, massive.
Although also at a time like where like that type of alt-rock became passe, like overnight.
You know, and really if you want to say, I mean, this is kind of reductive, but like,
you know, after Kurt Cobain dies in 1994, that kind of alt-rock becomes like pretty corny
pretty soon after that, like into the mid-90s.
Like this idea of like being a one-hit wonder with like an angsty grunge rock song, essentially,
from the early 90s.
I mean, that wasn't really cool going into the mid-90s or even late 90s.
So, I mean, it's pretty amazing that they were able to transcend that.
I mean, do you feel like Vampire Weekend was defined by A-Punk?
I mean, I feel like you were defined by that album.
And like, you had to kind of make a next album.
I mean, I feel like that album was pretty emblematic for you guys.
You're right to an extent.
And I think depending on what mood you catch me in, I'll be like way more like hardcore
about like, "Oh, some people probably only know A-Punk."
And then, yeah, when you put it like, "Oh, our first album was a moment that's easier
to work with," you're like, "Okay, cool."
You know?
But I know for a fact, because I met, there's definitely some listeners who checked out
after our first album.
Because I think our first album was so fun that like even Contra, which to me, and I
know for a variety of reasons, a lot of listeners don't hear it this way, but it doesn't work
timeline-wise.
But for me, in terms of kind of the vibe and kind of the approach and how they were made,
I'll always actually in a weird way associate albums one and two together and albums three
and four.
That's a thought experiment for the fans.
Like, naturally, the first three are clustered together.
This is six years later.
Of course, people won't think about it that way.
But I think if you really listen, you can probably know what I mean a little bit.
But even so, for me, albums one and two have so much DNA in common.
And yet, I do think there's a type of listener who is just like, "Man, I like Dr. Kama,
Kid K.O.D., A-Punk, Cousins, Diplomat Son.
I think we lost a few people."
But again, I've always believed that the fun part of being in a band is this kind of like
coalition building.
Even though there's always that fear that I've been talking about where it's like, "New
album, it's different.
You're going to lose somebody."
A, I believe that the people who stay with you all the way through and who are down for
the twists and turns, that's that type of amazing relationship that any artist should
be so lucky to have.
Somebody who got in because they heard A-Punk in like a video game 12 years ago and then
this past year heard like a song called "Married" and "A Gold Rush" and was like open to that
one.
That's the type of long-term relationship that you can only dream of having.
And then of course people dip in and dip out and dip in.
And that's true too, that there's people who like 100% for anybody who was like into the
first record and kind of dipped because they thought two and three just like lost some
of that fun or that energy or that rock or whatever.
Of course, you had people who probably thought one and two were like sucked and like on three
got in.
And then you have people, sometimes it's hard for me to believe that there's people who
only got into Vampire Weekend on Father of the Bride because they're like, we get those
emails all the time.
People are like, "You know, I never really knew you guys.
I happened to catch Time Crisis and I got more interested when you were talking about
your new record."
Of course, there's a part of me that's like, "How?
What if we've been doing these past 10 years?"
But then I take a step back and realize, listen, at the end of the day, Vampire Weekend, the
average American literally hasn't even heard the name.
Then you kind of pause and you're like, "Okay, all these memories of touring and working
hard and debates about the records, it's a little bit of a tempest in the teapot."
We're in a niche genre.
In some ways, I like thinking that way because it's like every record might just open us
up to a new person who either never gave us a chance or literally never heard of us.
But that's especially what's strange about existing outside of a popping genre.
You know what's funny with all these conversations that we talked about this being kind of like
a Father of the Bride episode.
I don't know if we're going to have time to get to too many fan emails.
Maybe we'll have to do them next week a little bit.
But the funny thing is, because this has been the one year anniversary of the album and
we posted some stuff on Instagram and I did a little medley on Jimmy Fallon of a bunch
of Father of the Bride songs.
It was really fun reminiscing and stuff.
But maybe because it's quarantine, it's like when I'm thinking about music, when I'm not
thinking about COVID or my family, when I'm thinking about my job.
I've been in just such an obsessive LP5 mode that it's like, I kind of want to reminisce
but everything, I have this natural, I think I had my kind of like my victory lap feel
a little bit from like playing the Garden through like, I don't know, the Grammys where
you just kind of relax and you're like, you know what, man?
And you know, we talk about that as a band, just like, we didn't know how this was going
to turn out.
It worked.
We just felt good.
I think everybody loved the tour last year was so good.
Kind of a bummer that this year we had a lot of fun stuff planned, but it is what it is.
But I think then kind of with COVID grinding to a halt, no more shows.
I'm back to that kind of like edgy, weird artist vibe.
Just like, I don't know, man.
Like, how does it work?
How does a career work?
Because I keep thinking about the next record.
So I need everybody to think about what does the fifth album do?
Because actually, Steven, you got your whole, what's your theory?
The five albums thing?
Oh, yeah.
The five records.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Well, just the idea of like having five great albums in a row is such a unique accomplishment
for a band.
And, you know, like the five albums test.
Because I think like there's like a lot of great artists that like didn't make five great
albums in a row.
Do they have to be successful or for you, it's just can you maintain artistic quality?
Yeah, exactly.
It's artistic quality.
But yeah, I mean, I was just thinking before about like what you were saying about people
coming in with the Father of the Bride.
I mean, I was just thinking about like myself as a kid, like hearing about REM for the first
time.
I think the first REM album I ever heard was Document, which was like, I think their fifth
album.
And it was because the one I love was the fifth single.
You know what I mean?
Oh, yeah.
And it's like new generations come into bands all the time.
And if you're sort of lucky enough to have a career that extends for a long time, there's
like different entry points that fans have for different records.
It's an interesting thing to think about.
And it's a really fortunate thing, I think, for bands that are able to kind of stick around
for a long time.
And I'm curious, like with Vampire Weekend, if there will ever be people who like maybe
are just Father of the Bride heads and like they don't really care about the early records,
you know, like they'll get excited about Harmony Hall and they won't care about, you know,
Oxford Comma or something.
I think it's definitely possible.
But it's like when you think in terms of discography, obviously, everybody wants to do a run where
it's interesting and there's challenging changes on each record.
And yet there's continuity and there's movement and all that.
But also, it's fun to think about in terms of discography, but also in terms of like
setlist, which is maybe funny at a moment when there's literally no live music happening
anywhere on earth, at least with an audience.
I also love thinking about things in terms of like setlist where I'm like, I love the
idea that an album always contributes at least just like a few perfect songs for the setlist.
And obviously a good setlist, you're still going to be mixing things up and throwing
in some deep cuts and stuff.
But like, you really hope that because I've had the experience sometimes where you see
a band live and there's like a single and when the single came out and you played it
on your laptop and you listen to the little laptop speakers, you're just like, not my
favorite.
Moving on.
And then you go see them live and suddenly that song feels like a pillar or something.
And they put it in the right moment at the setlist.
And then you go back.
And it's not just because the live version rocked.
That could be part of it.
Because you're hearing it in the context of other songs from their whole career.
You kind of recognize what it does for their story in a different way.
You recognize like why it's a pillar of not just the live set, but like their whole musical
world or something.
Yeah.
I always kind of hope that whatever direction a record turns in, because not everybody's
going to love every single song, but does it produce those songs that just feel like
important songs?
That to me is like the true test of a record, those setlist songs.
Baby, I love you, but that's not enough.
And pulling away has been unbearably bad.
I ran up the mountain out of your sight.
The snow on the peak was just unbearably white.
So have you actually like written songs for like LP5?
Like, I mean, do you have a vision of what that's going to sound like?
I definitely have things that I think, because you know, a big part for me in making albums
is you make all these imaginary set lists.
And like, sometimes there's like a song that's just called like, sounds like some like one
of those Robert Pollard phrases, just like delicate glassware.
It's literally just like a chord progression that you wrote and you were just like had
to name the text, the file and you look and you're kind of like, oh yeah, delicate glassware.
That's going to be good.
And then you actually...
Delicate glassware!
Delicate glassware.
And then because it's like, you know, it's a good chord progression.
And then you go back.
I've had this experience a lot.
And then I go like link up with somebody and they're just like, all right, so what you've
been working on?
I'm just like, oh, check, I got these songs.
And I play them like a real song and they'll be like, oh, that's good.
And then I'll be like, I really think this has legs.
Then I play them like this weird delicate glassware chord progression.
They're just like, uh, yeah.
Cool, man.
I mean, did you have a lyrical idea?
No.
Why is it called delicate glassware?
I just had to name it something.
And then you kind of realize like, oh, maybe that isn't going to be track three.
You're just kind of like, you're just so I think I'm in that phase where I've got all
these millions of ideas and realistically, you know, you're going to have to dust all
this off.
And when you actually burn through all these ideas, you're going to be like, you know what?
I thought I had 10 ideas.
I have two, but that's good.
I hate that part of the process.
It's painful, but it's a good thing to do.
So, yeah, I have a lot of these little ideas and, you know, if delicate glassware pans
out, this album might be heading in this direction.
But if it doesn't, OK, back to the drawing board.
That actually is not going to be useful information about where it's heading.
So I feel like actually in the past few days, I started to finally have an idea because
unfortunately, as an artist, I've always been so married to like the big concept, the vision
board thing, and I've never felt comfortable even going back to the first album.
And, you know, think about that album like the first songs written for it were Oxford
Common, Walcott.
They have one song about a comma and then one song about like leaving Cape Cod.
It already just had an atmosphere and a vibe and setting.
So I've always been kind of like I always look for that.
So it's very hard just to be like, you know what?
Let's just write a good song.
I need to have that path forward.
And I think I'm starting to get it.
So, yeah, I've been very much in this LP5 mindset.
Ezra, let's do a socially distanced backyard hang.
Oh, yeah.
Where you show me delicate glassware.
Some chord progression.
Yeah, I'll bring over a stick and like my little Yamaha.
Yeah.
And play you some chord progressions and stuff.
I'm curious what you would what you would think if you can see the vibe that things
are heading in.
But yeah, we got plenty of time to get it together.
I mean, is it fair to say that, like, because of this COVID crisis, that this is going to
expedite like a new Vampire Weekend album faster?
It might.
But I also feel like what's weird about COVID and I've talked to some other like songwriters
about this is like you want your albums to speak to a moment like individual songs.
They might say a specific thing, but I think part of the art form of an album is that somehow
all these different songs saying different things add up to a snapshot of the world and
how you feel about it.
And part of the trick of it is that a good record feels like, you know, again, I don't
know.
I'm so obsessed with this landing a plane metaphor, like to land the plane, man.
You got to start making decisions while you're still in the air.
You got to let the the wheels down, like at the right moment.
So because ideally you hit the pavement and just so and suddenly it's like this beautiful
symphony and it just works.
And so that means making decisions.
You're about to land at LAX.
You've got to be making decisions when you're, you know, over Scottsdale.
And so part of that is like really trying to get in tune with the universe.
And like, what do you feel in the moment, but also what do you see coming?
What are you scared of?
What are you like looking for?
And ideally you either perfectly dovetail with the moment or maybe even you're just
like a tiny bit ahead of it.
And the feeling that you're feeling positive, negative, whatever kind of because in a good
way, like one nice thing with all the emails we got about Follow the Bride with people's
questions, which we're not getting to today.
But one of the nice things is when there was at least two or three where people and DMs
or people would like say like, man, I've really been with this album during quarantine because
you got this like song Stranger that's like about being staying home and like your relationship
with the people that you live with.
And you got the song 2021 about like waiting for this year in the future.
Like suddenly, like some people were like listing a lot of lyrics that they felt like
dovetailed with it.
And obviously I didn't predict COVID.
I had a certain set of feelings and other shit on my mind.
But that's a good feeling that your record didn't just like feel like perfect for the
week it came out and burn out immediately.
The idea that this is an extreme situation.
But the idea that one year out people are actually and again with the double album thing,
the idea that a year out people like going back to certain songs and be like in the parlance
of our times, a lot of people kept being like this song hits different.
I noticed that when I posted me playing piano.
Ezra, I listened to the album today.
Oh, really?
And I think I have my favorite lyric from the record.
It describes my lifestyle perfectly.
The lyric is what's the point of getting clean?
You'll wear the same old dirty jeans.
That is my vibe.
And somehow I missed it the first time.
I don't know how I, you know, I've listened to the album actually many times, but like
somehow it really clicked today.
I was driving around in the minivan and I was like, that's my move.
And it drives my wife Hannah crazy.
I'll take a shower.
Then I'll put on the same pair of literally put on the same pair of dirty jeans I've been
wearing for two weeks.
I don't know why I feel comfortable in those clothes.
It just hit home, dude.
Well, there you go, man.
That's the dream.
It doesn't get any better than that.
Is that a year out that lyric just hits different.
I feel like sometimes those kind of lyrics don't get as much shine because people sometimes
are drawn to the more like serious, like meaning of life type lyrics.
But you know, that is as well.
I like that.
That's some real like Friday night.
They'll be dressed to kill down at Dino's bar and grill.
Like what's the point of getting clean?
You wear the same old dirty jeans.
I really appreciate that.
I think that's a top 10 lyric on the record.
What I was saying about that feeling of like, will those lyrics mean something to somebody
a year out or ideally many years down the line?
It's such a funny, delicate thing because nobody gives a f*** about a record if it doesn't
feel relevant at all right when it comes out.
But also we see records all the time, especially ones where it kind of like it sounds just
enough like the artist's old sh*t.
In your book, Steven, you refer to this as the greatest hits without the hits record,
which I loved.
I was like, oh, I know exactly what he means.
That's so funny.
And of course, great artists quote themselves and revisit material all the time.
But to me, what I thought you were describing is that type of record where it's just like
a band that does just enough of the old razzle dazzle that for the first week, all the fans
are like, oh, yeah, like hell yeah.
Oh, that kind of guitar solo, that kind of sound.
And yet I picture that record maybe not commercially, but at least vibe wise, just like after that
week of celebration, like literally the boys are back in town.
It just falls off because a year later, a greatest hits without the hits record isn't
as interesting as a record that maybe actually was provocative in the sense that you weren't
sure if you liked it.
What like I think that's it's like a short term reward kind of thing.
Oh, yeah.
When I think about that.
Anyway, this idea, it's hard to write a record when you it would be insane to basically be
like, you know, guys, I've been really like dwelling on what's happening in the world
and the next Vampire Weekend record.
It's called Quarantine because I want to get into this track one social distancing track
one social distancing.
And yeah, I know.
I know.
It's like everybody's saying that.
But I use it as a metaphor about like heartbreak.
And then you guys like, OK, when's it coming out?
And I'll be like, probably one to five years.
2024.
So any good artist knows that like, obviously, part of art is like processing things that
you saw things that happened to you, things that you felt things that you heard in the
years before you sat down to do what you're doing.
Like famously, there's the whole thing about first album you have your whole life to make,
which doesn't mean you're writing those songs since you were one year old.
But it means that you were taking in and this is your first chance to like express and put
together ideas that you'd seen in your previous however many years.
And there's a small version of that with every record.
And I think also when you're going through like a crazy time of change, like, yes, sometimes
you also just need to like, wait and see how it actually makes you feel long term.
Like, it's been interesting.
We were talking like last week about you just see these like shifts in mood.
Even during quarantine, you see like spikes of certain words and phrases and emotions
being expressed like everybody being like, well, right now, people are just fed up.
Even liberals are just kind of sick of being in there.
You just it's a very strange time.
People are changing stuff.
So I believe you can go deep and like get into some, you know, essential truths of how
you feel about the world.
But it's like, you can't always process real time.
Sometimes people talk about art like you're timing the stock market or something where
it's like, well, people are getting kind of buzzed.
That'll be a great time to go in and buy happy music.
In fact, as much as there have been some people like being like, I'm going to use this emotion
to make good art.
There's also like some tweet going around that who knows if it's even true.
There's like music supervisors and radio people are saying we want more happy music.
And then there's a lot of people making fun of that.
They're like, oh, I'm not going to make happy music.
And the truth is, I don't know if it whenever as this record comes together, if it's going
to be happy or sad.
You know, I think the good records always have a bit of both anyway.
But yeah, it's going to take a minute to really pin down what I or any artist wants to say
about this moment.
So yeah, in the meantime, that's why you just write little chord progressions and listen
to music and bullshit and talk about stuff.
Delicate glassware!
Well, we've been talking for a long time.
We've been going deep.
Thanks so much.
And sorry to just actually rope you into the Father of the Bride Jubilee Week first birthday.
But I appreciate it.
And my pleasure.
Good talking with everybody.
And next week.
So to all the fans, really appreciate you sending in all the questions.
But, you know, time crisis, man.
It's like basketball.
It's got to flow.
Yeah.
So it felt a little more natural to talk about the strokes and guided by voices today.
But I think we still got some Father of the Bride convo.
So we celebrated.
Everybody, don't forget to watch I'm Not There, the movie about Bob Dylan.
We'll be discussing that soon.
All right.
See everybody next week.
everybody next week.
View on TCU Wiki | Download Episode | Download CSV | Download Transcript