Episode 171: Hornsby On The Horn
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again. On this week's episode, we're joined by longtime friend and legendary
guest Bruce Hornsby to talk about our new song. We'll also talk about Kenny G, Carl's Jr.,
Horse Meat, Venison, and so much more. This is Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
They passed me by, all of those great romances
They were a pal to a belief, all my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt to 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
He's the lonely man
Time Crisis, back again. We're here to kick off episode two of our year-long Horse Meat special.
[Horse neighing]
The story of the horse started early April 22, we're wrapping up March 23.
No, but seriously, we've been hearing great things about the Horse Meat episode, which is the last episode if you're just tuning in now.
How you doing, Jake?
Doing well, thank you. How are you?
Not bad. Have you had any personal conversations about horse meat?
None.
I bring it up to people sometimes. Well, first of all, people keep talking about this restaurant, Horses in LA.
There's also a new show on Apple TV called Slow Horses that I've been hearing about.
Slow Cooked Horses?
I think it's a cooking show. It's just out there in the atmosphere. It's having a moment.
Have you been to Horses in LA?
No, I haven't been to Horses. Have you?
LA's hottest restaurant? No, I mean, I don't think I could get in. It's a restaurant out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel in the 80s.
It's that hot?
How'd you get reservations? I think it's that hot.
All right, maybe we can do the Time Crisis Christmas Party 2023 there.
If we ask nicely now, try to get that res about 20 months in advance.
Well, maybe we have Apple throw its weight around.
Oh, yeah, well, Apple makes slow horses and they're horses, so why not?
The type of horse meat conversations that I have lately, now that I've pitched my horse meat restaurants to...
I mean, there is like a type of guy who if I'm talking to and they're like in the investment or financial world, I will...
or they make any reference to having invested in a restaurant.
I kind of can't help myself. I have to dryly pivot to...
You know, I actually have a business plan for a restaurant group.
And this guy's like, "Oh, really?"
And then I start saying, and then it's like, "Are you serious?"
And say, "Yeah."
And then they're, "Really?"
And say, "Well, the good thing about this is I don't have to admit that I'm not serious."
I can just say, "Well, the thing is, you know, Joe Biden helped to make horse meat very difficult in the US, so it's really not possible right now, but, you know, could use
some help."
So is it a realistic idea right now?
Maybe not.
Your life sounds like it's so Larry David and curb, like just talking to people who are restaurant investors.
Yeah, basically.
Come on, invest in the restaurant.
I have a pretty curb-esque life.
I mean, I do work a bit, but I try to have a retired mentality.
I love it.
You know, I still go to the studio making a record, but I look at that as a hobby.
Well, you're investing in restaurants. I mean, I think it's really...
I'm not investing in restaurants. I'm talking to... I'm having conversations.
You're talking to people that...
I'm making small talk with restauranteurs.
I don't think I've ever met a restauranteur.
Really?
Have you met any, or do you ever socialize with hoteliers?
I've met hoteliers. I wouldn't count any of them in my good friends.
I mean, you know everybody who's my good friend, but you get to two, three degrees further away.
I've sat down with the hotelier.
Do you have any hoteliers in your phone?
In my phone? No, not in my phone.
I could think of like two or three... No, I could think of two.
If I saw them somewhere and somebody said, "Oh, do you know this person?"
I would be in a position to say, "You don't remember me. Actually, we have met, blah, blah, blah."
I could jog their memory.
I'd be like, big TC head tapped out with a horse meat epo.
Say, "Okay, well then we got nothing to talk about."
Seinfeld, we were just hearing a bit about these horse chips.
Can you explain to us what these horse potato chips are all about?
Oh, yeah. We got tagged a couple times in our Twitter account, @TimeCrisis2000.
There's a brand of chips. It's been created by Mischief.
The trollish company that did the Lil Nas X Nike bootleg shoes with the blood that caused such a fervor.
This is a chip called Illegal Chips, horse meat flavored.
There's a quote on the bag that says, "These are the flavor the government doesn't want you to try."
There's a mascot called Illegal Owl. He's a cool alligator with sunglasses and a chef's hat.
This is a troll campaign they did of chips with these pretend flavors of illegal things that you can't eat, such as horse meat.
Correct. Apparently, there was a poison blowfish flavor as well that they made.
What was it? Maggot cheese? Someone was telling us before.
Maggot cheese. This really bothers me. This also gets back to the anti-horse meat bias and hypocrisy.
Yes, horse meat is illegal due to Joe Biden and his brother.
I think the Democrats are going to take a beating in the next election.
I think that's going to be one of the primary reasons why.
Every seat that a Democrat loses in 2022, I can guarantee, has something to do with the horse meat ban.
Let me clarify. Casu Marzu. This is actually interesting. Do you know about this cheese from Sardinia?
No, it actually has maggots in it?
I'm just learning this in real time. It is a pecorino style cheese made unique by drilling a hole in the top, allowing flies to lay eggs inside,
and then letting the forthcoming generation of maggots eat and defecate in the cheese.
This is a real cheese that I guess is part of the grotesque suite of flavors that mischief has gone for.
I like that there's a generational element.
It's a legacy.
Two generations of flies created this cheese. That's a family business right there.
No doubt. The theme obviously being banned foods, I guess. I guess that poisoned blowfish.
Fair enough if it's banned foods. I just don't like the idea that you're putting something like horse meat,
which Americans were buying in the grocery stores recently as the 1970s,
you're putting it in the same category as something like maggot cheese, which most people think maggots are gross,
or poisoned blowfish, which obviously is very dangerous to consume.
This is the second time we've talked about this company because I think we talked about the Lil Nas X blood shoes.
It's such a pseudo event. Those shoes even exist.
It was just this totally made up, "Lil Nas X is using blood. He's a Satanist."
Then he comes out and he's so savvy that he can make a joke about,
"Why are you guys worrying about my blood shoes when people are dying?"
But who is this company? They're just a troll business?
I would call them a marketing company that's very edgy, that uses deliberately provocative products to make noise.
They made a saw blade weekend record. Did you see this?
It's a playable record by the weekend.
It's an actual saw blade that you can put in a machine and cut stuff with, but it has the grooves of a record.
I guess they do these outlandish products.
Like a skill saw or a miter saw?
Oh man, I'm not as steeped in the hole as you are.
10 inch blade on that?
I can find out. One of those.
It's like some Andy Warhol shit. They've fully fused commerce and art.
Biggest standing cinema
Dress my friends up just for show
See them as they really are
Put the people in my brain
Two new pens to have a go
I'd like to be a gallery
Put you all inside my show
Andy Warhol looks a scream
Hand him on my wall
Andy Warhol silver screen
Can't tell them apart at all
I feel like in the future, all big businesses, they'll have their mainstream marketing company.
They'll have their crisis PR for damage control.
But then they'll simultaneously be paying their troll company to create drama.
I could totally see that one day that there's some congressional hearing.
You just find out that Kraft Foods was both paying some company to save the reputation of Kraft Foods
while also paying some company to come up with insane, disgusting ideas.
Just to stay in the conversation. Really.
Just to dominate.
Gotta keep those Kraft singles relevant.
Gotta keep them edgy.
That's right.
The Weeknd record on a saw blade, it just feels like almost too incongruous.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I just don't see the Weeknd.
Yeah, if it was like a casual Weeknd fan being like, or even the hardcore one.
You mean just because you don't associate the Weeknd with like, power tools?
I'm thinking like Slayer.
Or Slayer, sure.
Or Tim Allen does a live comedy record, comes on a saw blade.
You're like, well, of course, he's the home improvement guy.
And he probably has released albums.
That's a great idea.
Seinfeld, hop on a Discogs.
Check out the Tim Allen comedy specials on vinyl.
Tim Allen tweets.
Yeah, someone tweets.
Can you buy a Tim Allen record? An LP?
Any comedy being issued on vinyl is so funny to me.
I think strictly Bill Cosby, right?
Well, that's back in, that was the predominant media.
But I'm saying like, there's like definitely new comedy that's on vinyl.
And I'm just like, vinyl?
Yeah, I'm not seeing any Tim Allen.
Oh, wait a second.
Tool time.
Tim Allen's Tool Time.
No, no.
No, I'm making it up.
Tim, he actually doesn't, I think he only has one comedy.
Oh, you know what?
It's on a compilation.
It's a Just for Laughs compilation.
Not sure if he's ever put out an album.
Lay in the Attic is reissuing vinyl.
I mean, back in the day, it really was a thing.
In the early 60s, right when Kennedy was elected,
there was an album that was one of the best selling albums in the country
that was just a parody of The First Family.
Yeah.
You always see that at record stores for like 10 cents.
Yeah, Cosby, Woody Allen, you know, comedians that had like--
Vaughn Meador, The First Family, 1962.
Yeah, just the idea that that'd be something on an audio format.
You know, and I guess in 1962, you're barely out of the radio age.
So the idea that you would just be like, "Come listen to this sh*t,"
and everybody sits down and listens to like, you know,
a 34-minute comedy album with like skits and stuff.
I mean, I can remember in the 90s, like being at summer camp
and somebody playing me like Adam Sandler skits
and being like dying laughing.
Jerky Boys.
Oh, Jerky Boys.
As discussed on the show, Jerky Boys, very influential.
The first Radiohead album, Pablo Honey is named after a Jerky Boys bit.
That's right. I love that for them.
Yeah, Radiohead, when they came on the scene,
they were mixing influences, you know, everything from the Pixies to Kraut Rock,
a little bit of Jerky Boys, and they mixed it in a stew
and they created a type of experimental rock music
that the world had never heard before, and the rest is history.
Just a sprinkling of dice.
A little bit of Andrew Dice Clay.
Colin Greenwood was a big Andrew Dice Clay head.
It's basically Andrew Dice Clay meets Pink Floyd.
That's what Radiohead is.
I remember Dennis Leary had like a big album in the 90s.
Huge. I had that.
He had a pretty good song.
Matt, can you throw on I'm an Ass**** by Dennis Leary?
Dude, Dennis Leary, classic. I'm an Ass****.
Are those MTV bits he would do?
Oh, yeah.
Like the black and white talking about Cindy Crawford, I remember.
Do you remember who produced Dice's album?
Rick Rubin.
What does that even mean?
Produced.
It's like.
I think he signed him.
I'm just a regular Joe with a regular job.
No cure for cancer.
Suburbanites.
Good title.
Leakist.
Yeah.
Porno and books about.
I actually know.
It just.
Damn.
It just came out of nowhere.
God, this is influential for me.
Oh, yeah.
No cure for cancer.
I don't think I've ever heard this, to be honest.
But sometimes that just ain't enough to keep a man like me interested.
The violent fence.
This is tight.
What's wrong with that, Dennis?
It's hot out.
I gotta tell you, this is very proto Tim Heidecker.
Oh, yeah, that's a good bridge.
I wonder if Heidecker would give it up for this or just like he'd just be like, distance.
We were like, is he making fun of this kind of comedy or, you know, like the last Heidecker
special, obviously, clearly a parody of a bad standup.
I just mean more like the music that, you know, there's this it's sincere enough that
it's good.
Yeah, it's happening.
Yeah.
Two words, nuclear weapons of Russia, Germany, Romania.
They can have all the democracy they want.
They can have a big democracy cake walk right through the middle of the square.
And it won't make a lick of difference because we got the bomb.
So, John, wait, Russia has the bomb, too, bro.
So does China.
And he's going to be pretty pissed off.
You know why?
Have you ever heard of the bomb?
We'll multiply that by 15 million times.
So, you know, you really are an ass.
I'm going to be on the news.
I'm going to be on the news.
Alright, Dennis Leary.
Okay, I don't, yeah, I don't know if, I think I'm wrong.
I don't think this album went platinum, but the single "Asshole" did go platinum in Australia.
Very different time.
What's the deal with Dennis Leary?
I mean, huge stand-up career, and then he was on like a weird like kind of network, like
a lot of FX shows.
Fire department drama.
I remember people, I remember, yeah, people just being like really into his, some of his
early FX shows.
And then he had that like sex, drugs, and rock and roll show on FX.
I feel like he's sort of had that, his personality works very well with the Sons of Anarchy adjacent
kind of crowd.
So, okay, he's done many shows for FX.
So he has this kind of like, I guess the way that like we're all curb heads, there's probably
like some Leary heads out there.
Oh, definitely.
I mean, I wonder if he ever like goes down and like gets on stage and does stand-up at
like the Cellar or whatever.
Oh, and I guess he's also a major voice in the Ice Age franchise.
Great career.
Yeah, great career.
I wonder when he's going to release another album.
His last album, 2004, Merry F*** Christmas.
These are the first three tracks on Merry F*** Christmas.
Number one, Merry F*** Christmas.
Number two, Fat Guy on the Plane.
Number three, Death Mute Cocktail Party.
All right, I don't know if we need to listen to this one.
By the way, speaking, my elegant transition was speaking of great careers.
We got Bruce Hornsby on the horn.
Okay, great.
Hornsby on the horn.
Let's get Hornsby on the horn.
Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
I'm noticing he spells his name with one N, which I've never seen before, actually.
I never heard of it.
Oh yeah.
It's kind of like French, like Denis.
You know what's funny?
Now I'm picturing, I'm just picturing in 1993, there definitely was somebody somewhere whose
two favorite songs were Creep by Radiohead and A***** by Dennis Leary.
Just jamming those two songs on repeat.
Just like when they're feeling a little emo, it's Creep and then they're just like-
Early incel.
Yeah, proto incel.
Before you had 4chan and Reddit, you had to just kind of listen to, alternate between
listening to Creep and A*****.
Speaking of A*****, here I am.
What's up, Bruce?
In all my A*****.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you?
Wait, Bruce, do you know the song A***** by Dennis Leary?
Does Jake Longstretch want to sing it to me?
I'm an A*****.
I just heard it for the first time in maybe 30 years.
We were just walking down memory lane.
It was a hit single in 1993.
In 1993?
Okay, well, yeah.
No, I listened.
It was a hit single.
No, but I got to say, Jake, just to change the subject from Dennis Leary, I've become
quite mad for your painting.
Oh, wow.
Oh, awesome.
I just love it.
It just hits me.
The fading letters of toys for us.
I just love the feeling of that.
You know, it's just sort of a dying era, you know, representing it.
I love the one with the majestic mountains in the background in the far distance, and
then in the near future, there's the Taco Bell, you know.
I guess I'm mad for it.
So anyway, just for that, I mean, you won the Pollock Krasner Award.
Yes, many years ago.
I see that you've been perusing my CV.
Well, I saw the paintings and I decided to look a little closer.
We're now aligned with Lee Krasner, the embattled Long Island wife.
Hell yeah, Bruce.
And Bruce, I don't know if I'm blowing up your spot.
We don't have to talk about it if you don't, but we've had private conversations where
I know that you really know about painting.
You've collected some work of some heavy hitter American painters.
Well, mostly just one guy, Edward Hopper.
Oh, wow.
So we were moving back from LA after being there for 10 years, 80 to 90.
I thought Tom Wolfe called that decade the me decade, but I think it was the 70s he was
talking about.
But I always said I went out there for me, referencing Wolfe, but I had it wrong.
Anyway, we're moving back to Williamsburg, Virginia, where we're from.
So we needed to fill up some walls on a new house for a building.
And so we went to New York and walked around the Soho area and went from gallery to gallery.
And we didn't see anything we really loved.
And toward the end of the day, we thought, you know what?
Hopper was a friend of my grandfather.
They grew up in Nyack, New York together.
We always thought we were related because some people in our family referred to Hopper's
mom as Auntie Hopper.
So that thin bit of evidence made us think that he was related.
And we used for the cover of my record, 1993, "Harbor Lights," we used one of his famous
paintings, "Rooms by the Sea."
And so my story at the time that I was telling in interview after interview was this guy
was related to us.
We found another old, someone had saved an article about Hopper in the Nyack paper, and
my mom had it in her archives.
And it said, "Here's an article about our dear friend, Ed."
And then we realized, "Okay, sorry, Hornsby, you're not related."
But anyway, we were very interested in Hopper.
And we found out that a dealer named Herschel Adler up in Segway, 2nd Street, Eastside,
we went up there and they showed us these paintings and we instantly became Hopper collectors.
- Wow, wait, I'm blown away right now.
So were these like oil paintings or watercolors?
- The oils were made out of my league.
- Or not available even.
- Well, no, they were available.
We started getting inundated with offers for someone who's selling a Hopper oil, and it
was for $15 million, that sort of thing.
- In the '80s it was?
- Yes.
- I was gonna say, man, you could have gotten a deal in the '80s.
Now they'd be like, God knows what.
- This was '91.
And so first we have the catalog of Raisin A. over here.
- So do I, I have that as well.
- So yes, we have 20 Hopper pieces, mostly studies for drawing.
Some famous oil paintings, we have studies.
And we have, well, we used to have four watercolors.
They're no joke on a financial level.
They were our big purchases.
- I would think even a watercolor would be a major commitment.
- It's up there.
It's just like anything where no more of these will be made 'cause the gas is gone.
It just continues to.
So it's frankly been probably the best investment we've made, but we didn't do it for that reason.
We did it because we loved the work.
So right, Ezra, you remember that.
I guess we talked about it before.
- Yeah, one time when you were hanging out, you were telling me a bit about your Hopper
collection.
So you got an eye for great American painters.
- I love Edward Hopper, and there's definitely a through line from his work to mine, for
sure.
- I think so too.
- So that makes sense that you're interested in my work.
It's very flattering.
I'm glad you looked it up.
- Thank you.
- Are these oils on canvas?
They don't look, they are oils on canvas.
Okay, so you have your own way of doing it.
It's just, I just love it.
So anyway, just wanted to blow you up there.
- I'll have to send you a book, Bruce.
I'll have to get your address and I'll send you a book of my work.
- Okay, yeah.
That sounds great.
We often use paintings for artwork 'cause I'm not much for sort of putting myself on
covers.
And so, who knows, maybe I'll come to you and say, "Hey, could I use this for something?"
Anyway, that's it.
- That'd be amazing.
- Yeah.
- It looks like you've done some work for Ezra for Vampire Weekend.
I saw some pieces that said Vampire Weekend, maybe a t-shirt.
- That's a very rare, great shirt.
I think we only sold it at the Hollywood Bowl.
That's a Jake painting from Vampire Weekend, Richard Pictures.
The one I'm thinking of, I think it's this one, where there's a tennis court with no
net and it says Vampire Weekend on it.
I think I could have that.
- Wow.
- So anyway, that's just something that I saw when I Googled you.
- That might've been some fan bootleg art.
- Yeah, definitely possible.
- Combining our worlds, yeah.
♪ Sunday morning, why don't we go for a hike ♪
♪ Meet in the trailhead light around a quarter to three ♪
♪ Me and Bobby stayed out late last night ♪
♪ Get on the trail, shake the cobwebs free ♪
♪ As we get to the top of the mountain, there's a view ♪
♪ Take a load off and crack a few mountain brews ♪
♪ Mountain brews ♪
♪ Sweet mountain brews ♪
♪ Mountain brews ♪
♪ Sweet as morning dew ♪
- I just received from Amazon this new book, and I just started it, and it's so great.
Okay, do you guys know who the classical virtuoso concert pianist Jeremy Dink is?
- No, actually, not familiar.
- He's really a freak, and he's a total polymath.
You know, he's just one of those guys that if you were a jealous person, he would just
piss you off because he's just got it all.
So he's a great writer, too, and he's written this memoir, and it's called--great title--
"For Us Music School Nerds, Every Good Boy Does Fine" is the title.
Do you guys know the reference?
- Yes. I always heard "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge," and yeah, you're, like, following the notes, E-G-B-D-F.
- Exactly. It's the lines. The spaces are F-A-C-E, face, and on the stave,
and the lines are just what you said, "Every good boy does fine or deserves fudge."
- I got a music theory question for you, Bruce.
If you were playing that as a chord, E-G-B-D-F, what do you call it? Minor 7 plus--
- E-G-B-D-F. Yeah, it's a weird chord. It's a minor 7 flat 9.
- Flat 9.
- Yeah, the F makes--it gives you some--it takes you into more of a Schoenberg territory.
- Yeah, you're getting weird with that F.
- You know, Elliot Carter or whatever, they may do that. That's actually pretty tonal for them.
But, you know, chords built in stacks of thirds generally are pretty tonal,
but you would use, obviously, if you want to make a tonal chord, it would be F-sharp, which would be the natural 9.
So, you would have a beautiful Bill Evans-ish chord, E minor 9.
- Right.
- Yeah, so there you have it. I dare you to put that chord, E minor 7 flat 9, on the next Vampire record.
- We recently got some positive feedback about having some music talk on the program.
I'm just going to play it on the piano real quick. Let's hear what that sounds like.
- Yeah, okay, great.
[Piano playing]
- Is that five notes?
- Yeah, five does. It sounds like some Smiley Whiplash music.
- We could make that work somewhere.
[Humming]
- So, we got a lot to talk about, Bruce, but the first question, have you ever eaten horse meat?
- I don't think so, but who knows what's in the quarter pounder with cheese?
- Great point.
- Who knows what's in the one quarter pounder?
- We did mean intentionally, but yeah.
- You have not knowingly eaten horse meat. You've traveled the world.
I'm sure you've been to places where horse meat is served or eaten.
In your whole life in America, were you ever in a situation where you were near horse meat,
or you saw it at a store, or you knew people who ate horse meat in the U.S.?
- I don't think so. I used to ride ponies when I was a kid,
but nobody was slicing them up and keeping the meat, so yeah, no.
- Well, you're clearly a savvy investor with the Edward Hopper paintings.
What would you think about a chain of horse meat restaurants in the U.S.?
There's a bit of a stigma that we'd have to fight. We'd hire a good PR company.
- Does Erewhon offer horse meat?
- We're going to fight to get horse meat in Erewhon.
- That's your next food. That's right.
You've got to go there tomorrow, you and Ariel, and insist upon a section totally dedicated to horse meat.
- Organic American horse meat.
- That may make Erewhon interested. I hope so.
- What's the most unusual meat you've consumed in your life?
- Well, I'm not a big fan of venison. I'm not a big fan of deer meat.
That's kind of standard, but it's—
- But you've had it?
- Yes, because it's common around here. My son—one of my twin sons is our resident country boy/daredevil,
so he's a bit of a hunter, and we live out in the woods, so there's a sizable deer population.
And Russell Hornsby likes to go out and blast away.
You know, we don't really like it, but we allow it. We're okay with it.
- You're not a hunter yourself?
- No, no. My dad grew up in a real country family around here, and all his brothers hunted.
So he thought he should do it because it was part of his family tradition.
He took us out once or twice, but I always got the feeling—I was about maybe seven years old when this happened—
I always got the feeling that he kind of hated it.
And I'm my dad's son. My idea of roughing it is no HBO in the hotel room.
That's my dad, too, you know?
So I don't know where Russell Hornsby got it, but it's fine. You know, he loves all that.
- Do you let him put all the meat in your chest freezer?
- We'll keep some of it, and we'll try to go through it and have at it every once in a while.
I don't know what he ends up doing with it. I really don't know.
He goes to New Kent County, which is one county up, it's real rural,
and there's some guy who slices and dices and gives him this big packages.
And I don't know what happens to him.
I guess he knows a couple of people around here who are mad for venison, so he gives it to them.
And again, we end up eating it.
He doesn't want to be one of those guys who just kills and doesn't eat the kill, so.
- So this is kind of a sweet story.
You're not a huge venison fan, but you'll eat a little bit a couple times a year
just to support your son and his interests.
- It's not horrible, you know? It's edible. It's just—
- How are you cooking it up?
- I don't know. He does it. I'm just—
- But I mean, is it like—it's just like a steak? It's not like some—
- Yeah, it's kind of like steak. I'm just enduring this, you know?
So I'm not really having much to do with it. I really am pretty clueless.
But I can get Russell Hornsby on the phone, and he'll be glad to regale you with his tails, if you'd like that.
- Well, our last episode was a horse meat special, so maybe we'll do a venison special in the not-too-distant future.
- I just want to see what Erewhon, how they react, because that could be something.
They're doing pretty well, that store, aren't they?
- Oh, yeah. They're raking it in.
[ ♪ "I'm All Lost in the Supermarket" ♪ ]
♪ I can no longer shop happily ♪
♪ I came in here for a special offer ♪
♪ Guaranteed personality ♪
♪ I wasn't born so much as I fell out ♪
♪ Nobody seemed to notice me ♪
♪ We had a hedge back home in the suburb ♪
♪ Over which I never could see ♪
♪ I thought the people who live on the ceiling ♪
♪ Scream and fight was corny ♪
♪ Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling ♪
♪ That's how it's been all around me ♪
♪ I'm all lost in the supermarket ♪
♪ I can no longer shop happily ♪
♪ I came in here for a special offer ♪
♪ Guaranteed personality ♪
- What's your new fast food love these days?
Jake?
- Um...
- Applebee's.
- Oh, I mean aesthetically or to actually eat?
- Both, yeah.
- I'll be honest.
I mean, I'll hit the Shake Shack every now and then in Pasadena.
- Okay, yeah.
- You know, that's about it.
I mean, in terms of aesthetically,
I'd like to tackle Cheesecake Factory.
- Hmm.
- Tough to get a good vantage point on a Cheesecake Factory.
- What do you mean?
- Well, they're usually... - Oh, as a painter.
- Yeah, as a painting.
- Oh, like...
- Aesthetically, I mean.
I'm just, I would love...
- As a subject, as a subject.
- Yeah, I mean, I did one painting of a Cheesecake Factory,
which I like.
It was like a cheesecake, P.F. Chang's combo.
I just feel like there's more to mine there.
They're in very dense environments
and they're usually annexed to other buildings,
so it's tough to get a sense of space and scale
with a Cheesecake Factory, so that's where I'm at.
- I would think California Pizza Kitchen would be a...
- I actually...
You're right on the money.
There's a California Pizza Kitchen
in an old repurposed bank in Pasadena,
which I photographed on three separate occasions...
- Wow.
- With the hope of making a painting of it,
and it's just not happening.
- It didn't work.
- It's not happening.
I got onto the roof of a building,
sort of semi-illegally, to photograph it.
It just still wasn't...
- So you just gotta find the right CPK to inspire you.
It's just not the one in Pasadena.
- You gotta find the right one from the right angle.
You can't just go there and just shoot a picture of it.
It's gotta...
It has to be some poetry in it somehow,
which is tough to wring out sometimes.
- Got it.
Okay, I was just...
- Anyway, that's where I'm at.
You mentioned fast food.
I'm just like, "Okay."
- Yeah.
- I'll hit Del Taco once in a blue moon.
I like Del Taco.
- Me too.
When I come to LA and I'm hungry,
I'll ride to see a Del Taco in the distance.
I'm headed...
- You're there, drive-through.
- Exactly right.
I'm fine.
- Hey, the first time you called into our show,
I remember you talking about you living in LA in the '80s
and hitting like...
- What was it?
- Carl's Jr.?
- Someone recognizing you in the parking lot?
Like a Carl's Jr. or something?
- Right.
I drove this (beep) car that I've had for years.
I'd never...
It was just a wreck.
And I'm driving in with my guitar player at the time.
When we walk out,
some guy's standing by my car and he sees me and he says,
"Oh, come on, man, you can do better than this."
- That's so funny.
- Yeah, I think I may or may not have told the story.
This car was on its last legs.
I was buying an old Neve board from the studio, Unique.
David Bowie and John Lennon had recorded on this.
The provenance of this board was just amazing.
- Wow.
- And so Tony was setting me up
'cause he was sort of in the know
with all these gearheads and these companies
that sold this stuff.
So he's coming with me.
We're driving into Hollywood to see this board.
And, okay, my air conditioner doesn't work.
So it's just blasting hot air on a 98 degree LA day.
His window will not go down.
It's stuck up.
The handle of the gear shift is broken
so you can cut your hand shifting into reverse.
Luckily, I was gonna sell it
and I sold it to a former keyboard tech of mine.
Who really did a pretty bad job for me.
And so we didn't have great love for this guy.
So it was sort of beautiful armor.
He bought it for me.
I lived in Van Nuys at the time.
Balboa and Van Owen.
Right across from, I think, Birmingham.
- This is like '85?
- This is about '90.
- Okay, okay, later.
- Back to Virginia.
And he buys it for me for 250 bucks or something.
And he blew a gasket on the way back
from my house to his house.
And so we thought, again, this is as it should be.
Yeah, he was not a great worker.
Kind of a pain in the ass.
And this is your sentence for that.
So yes, that's probably the story I told.
The Carl's Jr.
- Right.
- And the subsequent sale to get rid of the old Hulk.
A station wagon.
'Cause you know, we keyboard players
plugging around old fender roads,
and OB, et cetera.
Station wagon was our game.
- And that was really like before the heyday of the minivan.
How minivan would be the move?
- It would be good,
but there's not as much story space there.
The seats go, at least the ones I know, go on.
- That's where you're wrong.
- Okay, see, I--
- 'Cause Jake used to rip around in a Honda Odyssey
that had nothing but the front two seats.
- I have a 2011 Honda Odyssey
with all the seats out of the back.
So you can fit like a four by eight sheet of plywood
in the back.
So you can easily get like a fender roads in there.
- Maybe three fender roads.
- Easily.
- Yeah, right?
Okay, to know about that,
'cause our minivans were built for our family.
You know, we're bought for our family and friends.
So it had three layers of seats.
- Oh yeah, with all those seats,
yeah, that's gonna be a problem.
- Yeah, you got no shot.
The keyboard guys got no chance.
You should play.
Dulcimer.
- You know what, actually, Bruce,
I was curious about this,
'cause at Jake's recommendation,
I finally watched this great documentary about Kenny G.
I was struck watching Kenny G throughout the film.
You know, he has such a light, nimble instrument,
the soprano saxophone.
He's just practicing all around his house,
on the beach,
just like standing in the kitchen with his family,
in his bedroom, you know,
'cause you just like this stick you grab everywhere.
Even compared to like an alto sax,
the soprano is uniquely light.
But anyway, watching this film,
I was curious, 'cause Kenny G kind of like blew up
around the same time you did.
His first big album was like '86, late '80s.
- Okay.
- Just curious, like, you guys ever cross paths?
You have any opinions on him?
- We did cross paths one time.
Actually, no, a couple of times.
The first time I crossed paths with Kenny G,
I was playing in 1992, Bill Clinton's inauguration.
I was part of the band playing in the Arkansas Ball,
which was the one.
So it was kind of fun, kind of not, but it was okay.
- Wait, wait, but break that down.
So you're saying you were playing in the band.
It wasn't just like,
"Oh, and now here's Bruce Hornsby to play two songs."
They like put together like an all-star band for the event?
- Well, they did.
They had me play on a lot.
I was playing, I guess I was sort of the house pianist.
George Duke and I were the two keyboard players.
- Whoa.
- And I did a couple of songs as well.
So I get them a little mixed up in my mind
all these years later,
'cause I also did the '96 Arkansas Ball when he won again.
I was Bill Clinton's opening act a lot.
I played at Pacific Amber Theater,
the old Costa Mesa Pacific Amber Theater,
as one of the opening acts for Bill Clinton.
And then I ended up doing so much for him
for the next many, six to eight years.
And so, right, Kenny G,
he was either on the '92 Arkansas Ball
or he was on the '96 Arkansas Ball.
I don't think I actually met him then,
but I just remember him holding a note
with his circular breathing skills for a minute.
You know, walking through the crowd,
wafting through the crowd, holding that note.
But I do remember another time,
but it's kind of not a kind memory for my best Kenny.
But what the hell, I'll tell it.
This actually happened.
I won't name the name, but okay.
So in 1990, I'm part of this Herbie Hancock special
called Coast to Coast at the China Club in LA.
And it was an amazing array of geeks.
It had, oh, I don't know, everybody from Herbie, of course,
to Lou Reed, Michael Bolton, Sang, Sting, on and on.
- Oh, yeah, wow.
- And B.B. King, I played,
B.B. King and I did something together.
We did a Leon Russell's version of Mighty Quinn
from the Leon live.
(Humming)
- I also just love Lou Reed and Michael Bolton
being listed back to back.
That's wild that you just did that.
- It is wild, yeah.
So is the China Club still there?
It probably isn't.
- Not familiar with it.
- Oh, you don't know it.
- Don't believe it.
- Never heard of it.
- Yeah, this was 1990, I think, yeah.
- Okay.
- So downstairs, one of the principals says to me,
"Hey, I want to do a song, just acoustic guitar,
and would you back me up on piano?"
I said, "Sure, I love this guy."
And we go downstairs and so we're rehearsing.
All of a sudden, Kenny walks in.
He sees what's happening, the two of us doing this,
and he comes in and starts insinuating himself
into our little musical space.
- Like he just starts playing?
Like you guys are rehearsing
and you just hear that sweet soprano sax?
- And my friend just walked off,
walked out of the room,
leaving me seated at the keyboard,
so I was sort of stuck there,
looking up at Kenny going, "You know, I don't give a..."
So that was an awkward moment,
and I thanked my other friend there.
"Hey, thanks a lot."
I just didn't know what to do.
So, okay, there was that.
- So there was a very uninspired
Bruce Hornsby/Kenny G jam.
- Yeah, I thought you were gonna say,
and then you guys jammed for about 45 minutes.
Only one cassette exists.
- And we played, yes, that's right.
I played one note,
and he played that circular breathing note.
I just did my spider fingers on one note,
and it was a magical monochromatic moment.
Okay, the other time was more recent,
about maybe 2015 or so,
my country soul brother Ricky Skaggs
was getting inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame
at Kenny G.
And so Ricky asked me if I would come out,
'cause they wanted to play our bluegrass version
of "The Way It Is,"
is my favorite version of that song.
It's so good.
If you want to check it out,
there's a live Skaggs Hornsby record
called "Cluck Ole Hen,"
and it's just no joke.
[upbeat bluegrass music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ Oh, standing in line, marking time ♪
♪ Waiting for the welfare dime ♪
♪ 'Cause they can't buy a job ♪
♪ And the man in the silk suit hurries by ♪
♪ To catch his poor old lady's eye ♪
♪ Just for fun, he says, "Get a job" ♪
♪ That's just the way it is ♪
♪ Some things will never change ♪
♪ That's just the way it is ♪
♪ Oh, but don't you believe me ♪
- So I went out there,
playing in some big Nina Squaws auditorium in Nashville,
and so we played that song,
and it was just rolling.
It's just so much fun to play
with the Kentucky Thunderers band.
These guys, just like the John Sebastian song says,
they've been playing since they was babies
and playing since they were two, et cetera.
And so we did that, and it was really fun and good,
and Kenny G came over and was very gracious
and said, "Wow, that was really something."
I just was so impressed with it.
So he was very kind, and so I just thought,
"Well, thanks a lot.
It's very nice of you, and I love playing with this guy."
And bada-beep, bada-boop.
- He seems like a very nice guy,
and I really recommend the documentary.
I think you'd enjoy it.
And he also seems to have a sense of humor,
at least he understands that there's people,
a lot of people like to hate on his music
and people in the jazz community go in on him.
I wonder, are you familiar with, in the '90s,
there was an infamous Pat Metheny takedown?
- Oh, yeah.
He's an astronaut in that world, or Kenny is.
And, oh, yeah, I know it well.
You know, Pat is one of my great friends.
I mean, I just talked to him three days ago.
- Oh, really?
So back then when Pat Metheny
just went for this epic Kenny G takedown,
did you think about dropping him an email,
just like, "Hey, come on, cool it, Pat.
We're doing our best out here"?
- I left it alone.
It's really rough.
It's so funny you should say that,
because I happened upon that.
I was just doing the YouTube deep dive, you know,
that can never end sometimes.
You come across some blues, some Paul Butterfield thing,
and then right over here you see Muddy Waters
and Howlin' Wolf do it, and you go, "Okay, go into that,"
and then you see Sonny Boy Williamson,
this nasty as bad as [bleep]
and, you know, you just go down that rabbit hole
and it's beautiful.
But somehow in their offerings, you know,
the algorithm thinks it knows what you like,
of course, so it's setting me up
with some Pat Metheny material,
and one of them was his diatribe,
you know, his screed, his PG screed.
So I actually listened to that.
It's hilarious you bring this up,
'cause I just actually listened to that
about an hour and a half, two hours.
- Whoa. - What?
- Perfect timing. - And thought, "Whoa,
this is harsh."
Yeah, so I tend to not be that guy.
My mother taught me the old thumper saying
in the Bambi movie,
"If you don't have something nice to say,
don't say nothing at all."
So that makes me a bit of an anodyne figure,
you know?
But, okay, so people have always asked me
if I'm gonna write a book, 'cause--
memoir, I guess.
- Oh, yeah, great idea. - I actually should read
you guys some of this Jeremy Dink.
It's so--it's so good.
Anyway, my book would mostly be funny stories,
and I try to find some true-lie
that connect to these stories.
But there won't be the rag-fest in my book.
If I ever get around to doing it,
it would never happen.
I will not do that, because,
I don't know, golden rule, what the hell.
Always a good policy.
And I also think that if there ever was gonna be
a Pat Metheny, Kenny G,
kind of like meet-up and truce,
you could facilitate that.
Well, I know Pat a whole lot better than I know Kenny.
I really don't know Kenny G.
Just run into him, again, those three times.
A Pat Metheny, Bruce Hornsby, Kenny G record would rule.
That'd be--I would love that.
You would have to be in charge.
You'd have to be the boss of the project.
I have to say, and I think this probably rankles Pat,
'cause I've told him this, and he just laughs about it.
I've told him this, that I'll be in an airport gate,
and some--this hasn't happened in years,
but it used to happen in the late '80s, early '90s,
back in our heyday of being, you know, hit people.
Yuppie women would come up to me and go,
"You know what? I just love your music.
My husband and I, we make love to you,
Pat Metheny, and Kenny G."
[laughter]
Oh, God. There you go.
There's your album title, "We Make Love."
We make love to y'all.
Pat Metheny's an amazing guy.
You know, he played on a couple of my records in the '90s,
Harbor Lights and Odd House '93, '95.
So he was down here at Odd House '92, '94,
and he was just ridiculous.
He was just an amazing musician, and one time he played--
he was on these ridiculous flights of fancy,
and I had to just stop what we were doing and say,
"Hey, you know what?
At the height of your intense dealing with your instrument,
how much did you practice every day?"
And he said, "Well, for about five years,
from age 13 to 18, I practiced 12 hours a day."
Because that's the sort of stuff that the Jeremy Danks do.
You know, if you're a concert pianist
and you want to have a career of any worth and length,
that's the requirement is 8 to 12 hours a day.
And you know Art Tatum and his disciple,
Art Tatum II was Oscar Peterson.
Those guys were that way too.
They practiced 12 hours a day.
They would just--Art Tatum would get up and play all day
until he went to bed with a couple of food breaks.
And so talk about a reason for that otherworldly virtuosity.
That's the reason.
So Pat was that guy, and he said--his statement was amazing.
He said, "Yes, I practiced 12 hours a day.
I felt I needed to do that if I wanted to deal with Coltrane."
Because Coltrane was that guy too.
He was that kind of heavy, as we call it, woodshedder.
He was a real woodshedder, like Sonny Rollins on the bridge.
I don't know if you guys know that story.
Yeah, so Pat--there's a reason why he's a freaky musician
because he put in the work.
He's incredible.
Yeah, it's incredible.
I always thought I was a heavy shedder until I heard--
I was a 5-hour-a-day guy in college and a little bit post-college
until I got into songwriting and got more focused on that.
But I spent one semester out of school, living in a farmhouse out in the country
where they cut up the venison, and I practiced 8 hours a day.
And it's amazing how much better--how much improvement you can make
in 4 months, say, when you're in the shed 8 hours a day.
So yeah, that's--
Well, what's funny is that Matheny's beef with Kenny G
was not his lack of virtuosity, it was his taste,
which I can't account for because Kenny G is obviously a virtu--
And Kenny G was definitely playing--
He's a woodshedder.
Yeah.
In the doc he says now he's down to only 3 hours a day,
but this is him in his 60s.
Yeah, so that's impressive, yes.
When we do this summit, I think Kenny and Pat, they'll--
yeah, you get older and you get a little less passionate about issues of taste,
and they'll probably just relate to each other as just 2 woodshedders.
Also, jazz has receded as a kind of ascendant cultural art form.
In the late 20th century, we were still at the tail end of the jazz era,
where if Kenny G and Pat Matheny are coming up in the 70s,
they're right after the fusion period of Miles and all that.
But now we're 50 years past all that,
so it's sort of like those very vital aesthetic arguments
that almost kind of religious arguments that Matheny and Kenny G were representing
in their polar opposite approaches.
The waters have sort of settled.
I understand well, and you may feel that way,
and in certain circles you may be right, but not in his circles.
He's--
It's still--
It's still a spiritual thing.
It's still a deep commitment and a deep aesthetic consciousness
regarding the jazz scene.
And so--
I mean, that's great.
I mean, you know.
It is.
It's virtual religion to these people.
You know, I made a jazz record in '07 with Christian McBride and Jack DeJanette,
and Jack is a guy-- Jack came up.
In fact, there's a great record I have right here.
Speaking of them.
Were you guys ever into the EC-- Can you see this record?
It's called--
Yeah.
--New High, G-N-U High.
The record by a trumpet player named Kenny Wheeler and Manfred Eicher,
the ECM guy, the head of ECM.
He had a lot of cool with these amazing guys.
You see the other names, Keith Tiarat, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJanette.
This is a fantastic record, by the way.
And supposedly the story has it that Manfred Eicher got Keith to play on the record,
but I guess he wasn't that into it, so he--
The story has it.
Now, don't quote me on this because this is just what I've heard,
so it could be completely apocryphal, but it may also be true.
That Keith-- I don't know if you knew Kenny Wheeler,
but he knew and had played with Dave Holland and Jack DeJanette for years.
Jack DeJanette, he played with Keith for 50 years, you know,
in various-- from Charles Lloyd all the way up through the Keith Tiarat trio
with Gary Peacock and Jack.
Supposedly Keith walked into the session, walked to the piano.
There was some charts there, lead sheets.
Didn't speak to anyone the entire time.
Played his ass off, played so beautifully like Keith does and always has.
And then when it was over, walked out, never spoke to anyone.
It's interesting to know that when listening to "New High"
because his playing transcended on that.
Didn't need to talk.
He did his talking with his playing and always did.
You know, he was-- I have a son named Keith, and that's who he's named for.
Son named Russell, named for Leon Russell.
And we just like the names, too, you know.
I wanted to go with Keith and Leon, but my wife wasn't feeling Leon.
So Russell was good.
[trombone solo]
(jazz music)
- Hey, Ezra, you saw that Keith told me
that you reposted his Instagram post
about "Sidelines," about our--
- Oh yeah, yeah, that was cool
that your son was shouting out the song
and saying something nice about me being a part of it.
Well, yeah, and I was about to pivot to that
'cause, yeah, I wanted to cover "Horsemeat" and Kenny G.
Okay, now we should, I guess I'm through my checklist.
Now we can talk about the new song.
- Yes.
- First of all, I'm so thrilled
that you invited me to be a part of the song.
Should we just listen to it first?
- Matt, throw it on.
- Well, you can if you want.
Before we listen to it, let me just say this, okay?
You and Arielle did a session together.
I had never heard it,
and then the three of us got together last year,
last May or so.
We did the verses, but when I heard later on,
'cause I didn't hear them until you guys sent me this stuff,
when I heard your choruses,
I thought, "Well, my choruses, I like them.
They're fine, they're pretty good."
You singing the choruses was a whole different feeling,
and I just said, "You know what?
He is now the lead on every chorus that he sings on."
You didn't sing on the first chorus, that's just me.
So it gives the song a place to build,
a couple of places to go.
And then the breakdown, Jake, he was very creative.
He created his own sort of acapella breakdown,
or at least that's how we used it.
We were playing it live, Ezra,
and we're not doing that part.
It's so complex, and the range is two octaves plus.
(Ezra howls)
- Oh yeah, we were having some fun.
- We said, "We're not tackling this.
We're gonna do it.
We're not gonna do it like the record.
We're gonna do it the way the record was before."
You forced the issue with this great new section
that we just inserted as sort of a prelude
to the third chorus.
So there you go.
So yeah, this is, it has my name first.
It should probably be your name first, really.
- Oh, no, no, no.
I mean, you guided me.
It's actually really fun too,
because most of what I do is just Vampire Weekend,
to actually hear a song and just do my best
to kind of just sing it.
You already had all the lyrics,
I think that's great lyrics.
Yeah, I mean, the first time you sent me the demo,
I was like, "Oh, this is a great song.
Love to be a part of it."
Well, yeah, let's throw it on.
Blake Mills is-
- Oh yeah, and Blake Mills, big part of the song, right?
- Yes.
♪ I'm traveling down to Salem ♪
♪ I'm a Georgian Jewelry shop ♪
♪ Got to get there by morning sunrise ♪
♪ Got to save someone's innocent life ♪
♪ I'm coming up, but without a hysteria ♪
♪ Figured that I had a fever, bitch ♪
♪ Fever streets, walk, don't walk ♪
♪ Crowded sky, oh ♪
♪ Ventilators, oh ♪
♪ Antennas, oh ♪
♪ Under the moving sky, moving sky ♪
♪ Moving mobile boats flying by ♪
♪ Rental cars, tubes and tires and chains ♪
♪ Then everything around me silently linked ♪
♪ Such an irregular reality ♪
♪ I'm coming up, but without a hysteria ♪
♪ Figured that I had a fever, bitch ♪
♪ Fever streets, walk, don't walk ♪
♪ Crowded sky, oh ♪
♪ Ventilators, oh ♪
♪ Antennas, oh ♪
♪ Under the moving sky, moving sky ♪
- Where did Bruce go?
♪ Now wealthy, service lethal ♪
♪ Wipe it down and change your mood ♪
♪ I've shaped this creepy, glowing thing ♪
♪ A Salem, Barristers, Waterloo ♪
♪ Open up, open up, hysteria ♪
♪ Figured I had a fever, bitch ♪
♪ Fever streets, walk, don't walk ♪
♪ Crowded sky, oh ♪
♪ Ventilators, oh ♪
♪ Antennas, oh ♪
♪ Under the moving sky, moving sky ♪
♪ Open up, open up, hysteria ♪
♪ Figured I had a fever, bitch ♪
♪ Fever streets, walk, don't walk ♪
♪ Crowded sky, oh ♪
♪ Ventilators, oh ♪
♪ Antennas, oh ♪
♪ Under the moving sky, moving sky ♪
♪ As we sit on the sidelines ♪
♪ As we sit on the sidelines ♪
- All right.
Yeah, I really think it turned out great, Bruce.
Yeah, really psyched to be a part of it.
I'm curious, like, so how did the lyrics start?
You wrote the lyrics with Blake Mills?
- No, no, the song, the origin story,
the genesis story of the song is this.
I was making the Absolute Zero record in 2018,
and there's a song on there Justin sang fantastically on it.
It's called "Meds."
So we got Blake to play on it.
You know, Blake and Tony have their business
out at Sound City, and they run it together
out in the Valley.
And so we're setting up for Blake,
setting the engineers out of the studio,
doing something with Blake's amp, whatever, biking it up.
And so it's just Blake and I in the control room,
and he's kind of jamming along to the same,
to a click track for the song, for the "Meds" song.
And he's playing this thing,
and I was really taken with it,
just sort of hypnotic and beautiful.
I said, "Hey, Blake, would you just press record
"and just record a little bit of that for me?
"I think I feel like I can do something with that."
And so he did.
And so then fast forward to the shutdown,
the beginning of the shutdown era, March of 2020.
All my tours had been postponed or canceled,
just like everyone else's.
And so I can't go anywhere.
So I thought, "Well, okay, I'm gonna take the deep dive."
Again, I had a sequel to "Absolute Zero,"
"Non-Secure Connection" coming out in a few months.
So I said, "Well, okay, I'm gonna do this again."
And so the first, I remember this little,
what we called our Blake bit.
And I said to my engineer,
set me up with a session with that,
with the click and this thing.
And so I just wrote to it.
I turned it on with the click and the guitar part.
And I just decided to scat the first melody
that came into my head.
So, you know, I'm a bit of a Schoenberg
and Euler melodicism kind of guy.
So I scatted the,
(scatting)
You know, that melody came intact.
It was the first time I sang it.
I listened to it back.
I said, "Well, I like that."
I don't know if it's a little, again,
little angular for the average person,
but I don't care about that.
I thought it was arresting to me, interesting, unique.
And so that went from there and that's how it happened.
So then I wrote the lyrics.
And so we're in this shutdown era,
this COVID pandemic, beginning of the pandemic.
And so I thought,
"Well, this is a bit of hysteria going on."
It's funny because the third verse,
if you remember,
there was a big fear at first about surfaces.
- Oh, right.
Every surface lethal.
- Now every surface lethal,
wipe it down and change your mood.
You know, you'll be less fearful
after you wipe down your whole kitchen,
you know, that whole idea.
But I didn't want to make it so specifically
the whole song about this thing.
So I made it just about various types of hysteria.
The first verse being obviously
the Salem Witch Trials,
I'm traveling now to Salem.
I'm a judge in a jury trial, et cetera.
But the second verse is the most odd.
Your verse is the most odd.
It comes out of,
I'm a big Don DeLillo guy.
Okay, so here's my DeLillo section,
which goes all the way across.
A lot, up to the pinch and then learn.
So in his great book, "Underworld,"
I think it may be my favorite of his.
He's got so many that I love.
There was a bit in there about
this person just driving around
and getting into this strange mindset
where he sees, it takes place,
a guy's going to airport where you're passing
all these billboards for rental cars
and tires and chains and Applebee's.
And then all of a sudden in real life,
everything he's seeing on the billboards
is not everything he sees happening in front of him.
So that's just a very obtuse, inscrutable,
semi-inscrutable idea of one person's hysteria.
So that's the most out verse.
- Right, but now, yeah, but I see,
they're all linked by hysteria.
It's good to have an out verse though.
- Look, I'm not--
- Otherwise it's too by the,
kind of paint by numbers.
- Absolutely.
- That's right, exactly right.
Realist painting.
You want a little Krasner in there.
- Yeah, you need some weirdness.
- You need some Lee Krasner, not all Edward Hopper.
- And I think you got a great balance in the lyrics
'cause you could foresee if it just felt
like a COVID song coming out now,
it'd be like, nobody wants to think about it,
but you have this kind of oblique reference to it,
which people will always serve as a reminder,
people listening to the future.
But I love the opening,
just opening with this kind of Salem
witch trials, like,
♪ I'm traveling down to Salem ♪
♪ I'm a judge in a jury trial ♪
'Cause also, there's something about where you're like,
so is this taking place in like the 17th century?
Or, you know, Salem is still a town in Massachusetts.
Maybe it's just some dude in modern day Massachusetts
who's just got to get down to Salem for a trial.
And it's got this like,
kind of weird caught between worlds feeling.
And that actually brings me to one other thing
that I was kind of interested in.
So this upcoming album is part of this trilogy.
- Yes.
- Talking about the last one, "Non-Secure Connection."
And so much of it has to do with a lot of the language
and the lyrics and the themes are about technology,
hysteria, science, paranoia.
And so it's interesting to me that you're a big like,
Delilo fan and stuff like that,
'cause your work is known,
especially your early work for not being shy
about trying new technology, new sense and things like that.
But it's interesting to me that you live out in the woods.
As you said, you spend a lot of time playing piano,
an instrument that's hundreds of years old,
and yet you're also so interested
in this kind of like technological world.
So I'm curious how that plays out in your life.
Are you kind of like, by living out in nature
and kind of like dedicating yourself to a craft
that's existed for a long time,
is there like a tension in your life
between traditionalism and the strange world that we live in?
Are you critical of it in your work?
It's an interesting juxtaposition.
- Well, that's a multi-tiered question.
So let me try to answer it
with a couple of different answers.
Okay, so I don't consider myself to be an intellectual,
but I'm truly intellectually curious.
And I'm really interested in everything
from string theory to ornithology,
everything from the Large Hadron Collider
to the flight patterns of the hummingbirds,
you know, whatever.
And I'm also a big devotee
of what Asnob would call literary fiction.
And my library here's littered and dotted
with the Fransons and Wallaces.
And so in a way, I'm kind of always working.
I'm a pretty voracious reader.
I'm slow as I can be, slow reader.
Retention, maybe not the best,
but what I read about is always influencing my lyric writing.
The page pretty filled in for me.
I've been doing this for a long time.
So another love song, man,
I've got to find a very interesting way into that one
to not feel like, oh boy, am I doing this again?
Why do this again?
So I'm not so interested in,
okay, so technologically speaking,
I guess that's where it comes from.
I'm just interested in all that, interested in,
I love the magazine "Wired" for instance.
There's a song on my, the "Non-Secure Connection" record
called, well, it's the title song, "Non-Secure Connection."
It's about a hacker pulling some fairly nefarious deeds
out there in his hovel where he lives,
this dark cave where he's hanging out.
I guess I'm channeling the Nina Simone edict
that the artists should write
about the times in which they live.
And so I take that as, and run with that.
Also on a record of making level though,
I was kind of turned out by this deep dive
into the Justin Vernon Bon Iver world.
And then meeting Ariel and you,
because it's a similar thing.
People who are really interested in an intense search
for new sounds, for new ways of doing things.
So I'm just totally interested in all that too.
Whereas before maybe I was more of a traditionalist.
I made a really weird record in 2001 called "Big Swing Face"
where my A&R guy challenged me
to make a modern quote unquote record.
And it was that.
I call it sort of my electronica blues record.
For some people it was the first Bruce Hornby record
they'd ever liked.
For other people it was like KG in the jazz world,
anathema to them.
(laughing)
So for most- - Wow, divisive.
- Yeah, it was very divisive, yes.
I'm still proud of it.
Yeah, if you heard the first song,
it's called "Sticks and Stones."
I love the song "Sticks and Stones."
I like playing a solo piano
and I feel like it really can really get it right.
But the record is interesting too.
I was inspired by the radio head record
"Everything in Its Right Place."
I think I-
♪ Everything ♪ - Oh yeah, on Kid A.
- So I'm just, again, I'm curious
and interested in loads of bollocks out there.
And so that's my answer.
- Did you read that new "Francine" novel?
- I did, "Crossroads."
I like it.
- Yeah.
- I like "Francine."
I've read, look, I've read the four
since, oh come on, "Corrections."
- Yeah.
- "Corrections," freedom, purity.
It's funny 'cause purity's probably thought of
as the lesser of the four.
It might be my favorite.
I really liked purity.
I liked "Crossroads" as well.
I relate.
I grew up in this small conservative town
where young life's religious groups did abound.
And I was in one of them for a while
just 'cause the most beautiful girls in my high school
were in it, so that was my entree.
That and hoops was my only way
of being able to hang with those lovelies.
My standard line about myself is I got a lot better looking
when I got into a popular band.
So this was a necessary thing to be into
what was called young life back then.
- Yeah.
- So right, I related to "Crossroads."
So what'd you think of "Crossroads," Jake?
- I loved it.
I mean, I think he's writing sequels to it.
So I'm excited.
I do like his work a little bit more
when he's writing about contemporary life.
Like I loved "Freedom" and I love "Purity" too.
But so I was a little bit apprehensive with "Crossroads"
'cause it was set in the '70s.
And I was like, okay, I've seen enough things about,
I've read and seen enough movies about the '70s,
but I got into it.
It's awesome.
- I've never read any "Franzen,"
but I'm surrounded by huge "Franzen" heads.
- Yeah, 'cause Rasheed's a big "Franzen" head too, right?
- Yeah.
- That's why it's at a high level.
It's very articulate.
He's also real funny.
- Yeah, I'm a fan.
- They're not difficult reads.
They're not thick like some,
like say, trying to get through "Gravity's Rainbow"
or "Infinite Jest."
That's a little tough for me.
I love more.
I have a harder time with those.
My favorite Wallace are the essays.
Really funny, really great.
- Oh, for sure.
- A funny thing,
a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again.
- Oh, classic.
- Just great.
- Classic.
- I love him, but some of it's a little thick,
and I don't find that with "Franzen."
I understand that his earlier works
before "Corrections" were more like that.
He was really trying to be Wallace and Pynchon.
So I'm not drawn to that.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'll need to give it a chance and we'll love it.
So who knows?
But yeah.
- Thanks so much, Bruce, for coming through.
Always a pleasure.
Now you've been on "Time Crisis" three times.
So you're starting to get into the ranks
of serious guests. - Three?
- 'Cause we've done two in-depth interviews,
and remember when you were kind enough
we called you last minute?
Like when you were just on tour?
- Regarding the supposed first podcast ever.
- "The Dead," yeah.
- Is that still thought of?
Has anyone come to reclaim the title of first podcast?
- No. - No.
The first podcast is "A Grateful Dead Song."
The first podcast is "A Grateful Dead Song."
Make of that what you will.
If you discount women who are married to "Time Crisis" hosts,
you're really up there, Bruce,
in terms of multiple guests we've had on this show.
- That's true.
What a moment for me.
No, I'm happy to- - This is big.
- I thought it was a pleasure to check in with you guys.
So just let me know when the next time can happen.
I'm all for it.
And Jake, please send me that book.
- Oh yeah, I'll connect you guys.
♪ Thunder thighs, juicing all, turning red ♪
♪ Pizza face, pop it quick ♪
♪ Go master your pits, so panting waist ♪
♪ Noddy-headed, fatty cake ♪
♪ Old sticks and stones, gonna break my bones ♪
♪ But your words always turn me the most ♪
♪ My scars will heal, but the scars won't ♪
♪ I blow up and lose my head, well I hope I don't ♪
♪ I hope I don't ♪
♪ Jazzy ass, drool face, so beady eye ♪
♪ Fat half a deck, big ones like old speck ♪
♪ Nasty fuck, teeth stained, red shit ♪
♪ Face, penis, brain, sucking wind ♪
♪ Whining, humming, fucking stains ♪
♪ Old sticks and stones, gonna break my bones ♪
♪ But your words always turn me the most ♪
♪ My scars will heal, but the scars won't ♪
♪ I blow up and lose my head, well I hope I don't ♪
♪ Well I hope I don't ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Sucking wind, oh tell me when does it end ♪
♪ Old sticks and stones, gonna break my bones ♪
♪ But your words always turn me the most ♪
♪ My scars will heal, but the scars won't ♪
♪ I blow up and lose my head, well I hope I don't ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ My skin's so thin, you can see through it ♪
♪ All the laughing brass is off, oh it don't do it ♪
♪ Half my ass is on the line, I'll slow it ♪
♪ I blow up and lose my head, well I hope I don't ♪
- Thank you to Bruce Hornsby,
and I wanna point something out.
We did a whole long segment with legendary Bruce Hornsby,
and you know what we didn't bring up once?
- The dead.
- The dead.
I'm proud of us.
- I'm hoping horse meat becomes our dead.
You know what I mean?
- Oh, absolutely not.
(laughing)
I will resign from this show.
- Jake is out on that.
The people had enough of the Grateful Dead,
a horse meat's our new go-to.
- No, the dead is evergreen.
Horse meat is, there's a short shelf life on horse meat.
(laughing)
- Okay, but could we add horse meat?
Maybe horse meat is our new Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
- There you go.
- 'Cause I feel like Flamin' Hot Cheetos,
we reached such a climax with the investigative journalism
from the LA Times trying to take down Richard Montanez,
even though he clearly survived.
But I feel like that was the end of our Hot Cheetos journey.
So yeah, I feel like in the future,
next time we have on some Luminary,
we can just do a kind of lightning round,
you know, and we're interviewing whoever that might be.
- Jonathan Franzen.
- Yeah, when Jonathan Franzen comes on,
or Hillary Clinton, you know,
next time we get a heavy hitter, we're just like,
all right, just to kick things off,
just to get you warmed up, Madam Secretary,
A, do you like the Grateful Dead?
Well, you know, I remember they were,
yeah, they came by the White House when Bill was president.
And of course, one of their keyboardists, Bruce Hornsby,
he played the Arkansas ball twice.
Of course, I'm familiar with him.
And got any favorite songs?
Ah, you know, Truckin'.
All right, very cool, very cool.
Have you ever eaten horse meat?
Oh, well, once.
Or you know, that'll become our new,
just like go-to lightning round.
- Our five questions.
I like the idea of having President Joe Biden on,
and it's only about horse meat.
- I'm telling you, it's not looking good for the Dems
with the whole horse meat issue.
A lot of people saying the Bidens are corrupt
because his little brother pressured him to get the votes
all at the behest of one oil heiress.
- Thank you, Biden.
- It's time for the Top Five on iTunes.
- This week on the Top Five,
we're comparing the top five songs of 2022 on Apple Music
with the top five Billboard hits of 1988.
Why 1988?
'Cause that's when Bruce started
♪ Playing, playing in the band ♪
- Which is funny 'cause as we discussed,
we did not talk about The Grateful Dead once
with Bruce Hornsby on the program.
Little random that we're taking it back to '88,
but '88 was just a banner year for Hornsby.
- Yeah, I'm excited about a top five from '88.
I love '80s top fives, so I'm on board.
- I don't know if we've done '88 any time recently.
So the number five song this week in '88,
an absolute classic, Terrence Trent Darby with "Wishing Well."
- This is the first tape I ever bought.
- Really? - With my own money, yeah.
- It's a great song.
♪ Kissing like a bandit stealing time ♪
♪ Underneath the Sycamore train ♪
- Sycamore, nice.
♪ Kissing while Beyonce's violent times ♪
♪ To my sweet lover and me ♪
♪ Slowly but surely ♪
♪ Your appetite is more than I knew ♪
- In my mind, maybe 'cause I was a kid
when I bought the record, I think of him so young,
but his voice is so mature sounding.
- Yeah, it's a real grownup voice.
♪ Wish me love for wishing well ♪
♪ To kiss and tell ♪
♪ Oh, wishing well ♪
♪ Your appetite is more than I knew ♪
♪ Slowly but surely ♪
♪ Your appetite is more than I knew ♪
♪ To kiss and tell ♪
♪ Oh, wishing well ♪
♪ To kiss and tell ♪
♪ Oh, wishing well ♪
♪ To kiss and tell ♪
♪ Oh, wishing well ♪
♪ To kiss and tell ♪
♪ To kiss and tell ♪
♪ Hugging like a monkey ♪
- I never fully understood Terrence Trent Darby.
Is this his one big hit?
- I don't know anything about this guy at all.
- Yeah, I mean, he's kind of like,
he's a little bit Prince, a little bit rock.
Kind of an interesting story that before he was a musician,
he was trained as a boxer
in one of the Florida Golden Gloves
Lightweight Championship in 1980.
He enlisted in the army the next year,
but was court-martialed and dishonorably discharged
after going absent without leave.
Then he signed a record deal.
I just feel like there's all these stories
that he was kind of like a really arrogant guy,
like burned a lot of bridges or something.
And then he changed his name to Sananda Francesco Maitreya,
which I think is maybe part of like a spiritual awakening.
♪ To kiss and tell ♪
♪ Oh, wishing well ♪
♪ Rock a dog ♪
♪ She might get up ♪
- Yeah, this was like this big album.
Had a few other hits.
This is far and away the biggest hit.
I guess he was just kind of like,
he was just on some like Kanye (beep)
He would just speak very highly about himself.
He would do interviews when this album came out
claiming it was the most important album
since Sergeant Pepper.
- That's amazing.
He was fired up.
- Yeah, why not?
He later said that most of what he said
was exaggerated by the press,
but sometimes it's necessary to hit people over the head
to get their attention.
I mean, he's right.
Why not?
So I guess just what happened?
Why did he not like,
I guess he just didn't maintain
like the hit making capacity.
- Times changed.
- Yeah, I guess the follow-up albums were not quite as big.
In 1995, he dropped an album called Vibrator
and then just straight up changed his name.
- Vibrator.
- Vibrator didn't land?
- Let me see.
What's up with Vibrator?
- It's okay.
It's not like amazing.
He was clearly just like feeling himself
and like out of his mind.
'Cause like Wishing Well, it's okay.
It's like, that's a B at best.
- Wow, can we drop a bomb to that?
(explosion)
- No, Wishing Well's like an A.
I think Wishing Well's Earth's End.
- No, it's not an A.
- I think Wishing Well's an A.
I also think that, do you know what he looks like, Jake?
- No, I have no idea.
- He's beautiful.
And you're talking about 1988 and MTV.
I feel like a lot was happening around him for this.
I mean.
- I was watching a lot of MTV in 1988
and I don't remember this guy at all.
That was the peak of my.
- This is the number one hit.
Were they not playing the video?
Yeah, he's very handsome.
- They were.
I'm saying, I know this from the video.
- Okay.
- I'm nine years old in '88 and I'm seeing this.
I'm like, "Oh, I gotta buy this."
- I'm a little bit younger than you guys.
So the first Terrence Trent Darby album
I got into is Vibrator.
It's also technically called Vibrator
and then in parentheses, batteries included.
(laughing)
I'm just curious what his music sounded like in '95.
Can you just throw on the title track from Vibrator?
- He looks corny as hell.
I'm Google image searching.
He looks corny as hell.
- It's like a Billy Vandille type of.
- Yeah, it's very Milly Vanille.
And maybe like that didn't help.
- Well, you can't knock him just 'cause he looks like.
They cast the Milly Vanille guys
'cause they were good looking.
- Or they looked like Terrence.
- They looked like Terrence Trent Darby.
- Honestly, hot take.
Milly Vanille, better songs.
- Oh my God.
- Okay, but they didn't write them.
- I don't care.
- Or sing them.
- Who cares?
Oh, this sounds rough.
Great snare tone.
Oh yeah, a little D and B.
- Okay.
- Right?
When did this come out?
- '95.
- Okay, so some proto jungle influences here.
- Yeah.
He knew what was up.
♪ I'm your way back from the soul mind ♪
♪ But sooner or later ♪
♪ Sooner or later ♪
♪ Sooner or later ♪
♪ Sooner or later ♪
- It's interesting, Select Magazine gave the album
at the time, one out of five stars
saying that it was too derivative of Prince,
Jimi Hendrix, Rod Stewart, and Marvin Gaye.
And that Rod Stewart's a good call.
- Oh yeah, I see that a little bit of Rod in there.
- I need to read a book about Terrence Trent Darby.
- What?
- "Sinanda Maitreya."
I've always--
- You need to read an entire book on Terrence Trent Darby.
- You know, hopefully like a short book,
hopefully like a 90 page one.
- Yeah.
- Maybe like 100, 130, a slim volume.
- Right.
- Maybe that'll be Stephen Heiden's next book after--
- "Pearl Jam."
- Yeah, I read the "Pearl Jam" book by the way.
We've got to talk about that when it's out.
- Is it a fun read?
- Yeah, I loved it.
And that's coming from somebody like,
I don't know "Pearl Jam" that well.
It's interesting, you know,
he goes in a lot of different directions.
Anyway, number five, "Lil' Dirk, What Happened to Virgil?"
Featuring Gunna.
♪ Oh yeah, I'm finna make a banger with this ♪
- Jake, do you know who Virgil Abloh is?
- No.
♪ Last time you told me you're proud of me ♪
♪ You wasn't proud of me ♪
♪ You was the (beep) who doubted me ♪
♪ I was too mad at you ♪
♪ You let him come kill you ♪
♪ My brother that (beep) was a tragedy ♪
♪ But magically I got a strategy ♪
♪ I was so sick and tired ♪
- If I tell you that Virgil Abloh was a designer,
does that help?
- No, I have no idea who that is.
- Have you ever heard of the fashion brand Off-White?
- Nope.
- Louis Vuitton?
- Do you know who Louis Vuitton is?
- I've heard of the brand.
I don't know anything about the man.
- Well, Virgil Abloh, who very sadly died super young
at the age of 41 last year,
was this very influential designer.
He had a brand called Off-White.
He eventually became the lead designer
of Louis Vuitton menswear.
He's very associated with Kanye.
♪ Yeah, down X bill, break a set off ♪
♪ My phone dad passed me a charge ♪
♪ Ain't have a coat, walk to school in a thong ♪
♪ You lookin' up to that burn ♪
♪ Get on my business, no concern ♪
♪ I get the dignity, when I learn you ♪
♪ I love the treasures, it's eternal ♪
♪ Oh my God, I'm havin' a virgin ♪
♪ I wish my brother had made it out surgery ♪
♪ I be up thinkin' that he be hurtin' me ♪
♪ If they gon' catch me, the (beep) gon' murder me ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Yeah, my bro told me he come from a virgin ♪
- Why is this song called "What Happened to Virgil?"
Anybody know?
Is this song about Virgil or?
- It might've come out shortly after he passed,
but before "The Cause of Death" was released.
- And is it about Virgil? - What was "The Cause of Death?"
- Or is he just kinda using his death as like a?
- I believe he had cancer.
- A kinda like way to just talk about confusion or something.
- It was just a vibey title.
♪ Got a solution and got some more problems ♪
♪ We from the sandbox, my dog's a scotland ♪
♪ 16 year old when I show my first shoppers ♪
♪ Who had a big news landing in Opal Austin ♪
♪ Could fly on a G5, fly helicopters ♪
- Ezra?
- Yeah?
- I don't wanna spoil what your birthday present
is going to be.
- Yeah.
- But don't buy the Terrence Trent Darby
biography by Desan MacLean.
- Nice.
- Okay.
- Wait, when's your birthday, man?
It's honestly.
- Oh, my birthday, it was last week.
- Oh, (beep) man.
Oh, happy birthday. - Happy birthday.
- Oh, thank you.
- Did you do anything?
- Yeah, I was in New York.
I had a little dinner.
It was fun, a Chinese restaurant.
Good crew.
- Despot?
- Oh yeah, Despot in attendance, of course.
Yes, that was the night before my birthday
and then on my actual birthday, I was at a wedding,
which is the second time this has happened to me
because my birthday is in April.
People love to get married in April.
So I've twice been at weddings and it's my birthday
and then you're meeting all sorts of random people
at a wedding and friends of friends
and somebody will say, "Oh, you know it's his birthday."
I'll say, "Oh, it's your birthday?
"What?"
And I'll say, "Yeah."
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I'll say, "Wait, but you're here.
"Did you get to do anything?"
And I'll say, "Yeah, I had a little dinner last night
"and now this, I get to have two parties."
- 38?
- Oh yeah, I'm finally 38 special.
Gonna throw on some Florida rock.
What's 38 special's big song?
♪ So hold on loosely ♪
♪ But don't let go ♪
Is that right?
♪ If you cling too tightly ♪
♪ You're gonna lose control ♪
Let's listen to 38 special, F the top five.
- All right, we're gonna skip the next few songs
to the top five, we're gonna get into some 38 special.
Yeah, what's 38 special's biggest song on Apple Music?
All I know is that 38 special is from Florida,
I believe Jacksonville.
- I didn't know that.
- I feel like Bayo told me this,
or like somebody who knew somebody from Florida said,
"You know that when 38 special plays
"their hometown of Jacksonville,
"you know how big the guest list is?"
And I said, "How big?"
"5,000 people."
(laughing)
Now that I'm older, I'm reflecting,
I'm like, "Wait, where are they playing?
"How big is the show, like 200,000 people?"
This is Hold On Loosely.
♪ You see it all around you ♪
♪ Good love has gone bad ♪
♪ Usually it's too late when you realize what you had ♪
♪ And my mind goes back to a girl I met 10 years ago ♪
♪ Who told me just hold on loosely ♪
♪ Don't let go ♪
♪ If you cling to the dark, yeah ♪
♪ You're gonna lose control ♪
♪ You're better than someone to believe in ♪
♪ And a whole lot of space to breathe in ♪
- It's hard to picture a 38 special show going off.
- I thought 38 special would sound more like Southern.
- Do you know this song?
- Yeah, kind of, but it's like--
- Only kind of?
- Yeah, only kind of, if I'm honest.
- I listen to a lot more classic rock radio
than you in the car.
- This is very mediocre rock music.
- I always knew that one day I would get deep
into 38 special and really explore their discography.
And I knew that that day would be April 8th, 2022.
And here we are about a week later.
- Is this REO Speedwagon era?
- Yeah, same era.
- The outfield, you know, like early mid eighties.
- 5,000 person guest list.
- Maybe I'm just wrong and it was like 500.
That's actually like way more.
- Are you going to the 38 show tonight?
Now I'm just curious, like,
what is the story with this band?
- They're from J-Ville.
- But like, what year do they start?
- Well, and they have a Leonard Skinner connection.
- '74?
- 'Cause Donny Van Zant, Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother,
I guess like founded 38 special.
- Wow.
- And they got their name, this is pretty tight.
- The band's name was thought up after an incident
which found the boys practicing in a warehouse
out in the middle of nowhere.
When police arrived after being notified
by locals of the noise,
the band members were unable to come out
because of a padlock on the door.
One of the cops said, "That's all right.
We'll let this 38 special do the talking."
And shot off the lock.
- That's very Skinner.
- 38 special played at Florida theater in 2020,
capacity 1900.
- If you're only selling 1900 tickets
and you got a 5,000 person guest list,
you gotta get that guest list shorter.
Some of those people would probably buy tickets.
- I mean, 5,000 people is that nobody knows,
there's people that nobody knows that are on the guest list.
- The more I think about this, there's no way it's true.
It must've been 500.
- Yeah, it's funny this has no sub,
no trace of Southern heritage at all.
This band could be from like Maine.
- Oh, it totally.
They could be from Canada.
They could be from California.
- Scotland.
- Yeah, yeah, truly.
It could be from Scotland.
I'm sure as I explore their catalog,
I'll find some more of the Southern rock sound.
- You should probably also find like a 300 page book
on 38 special and Donny Van Zandt.
- Maybe I'm just thinking of the Wahlbergs,
but Donny is such like a name for like the other brother.
Like it's like, oh man, you know,
we got Van Zandt on vocals like Ronnie, Ron, no Donny.
Or it's like, oh yeah, we've got one of the Wahlbergs,
Mark Wahlberg, no Donny Wahlberg.
Donny is just like a great name for like the other brother.
- Yeah, come on Donny, let's go get a lane.
- Yeah, and then of course you got Donny from Big Lebowski.
- Yeah.
- Got Donny Longstreth.
- Donny was a surfer.
- Donny Longstreth, don't hear about him too often.
- Donny.
- Don Jr.
- Oh yeah, Don Jr.
- Donny.
- Donny Jr.
- Donny.
- Damn.
Are we just completely derailed from the top five?
What's happening?
What are we doing?
- Let's go lightning round.
Okay, number four, Michael Jackson,
Man in the Mirror from Bad.
♪ I'm looking at the man in the mirror ♪
♪ I'm asking him to change his way ♪
- Cool chorus.
♪ How about could it be any clearer ♪
♪ If you wanna make the world a better place ♪
♪ Take a look at yourself and make the change ♪
- Co-written by Glenn Ballard,
who I believe wrote the Alanis Morissette song.
- Oh yeah, he worked on that, yeah.
- Interesting crossover of eras.
- Yeah, well it's funny to think
that's only eight years apart.
Like he bursts on the scene of Man in the Mirror
and then he's probably, you know,
seven years, six or seven years after this
he's working on Alanis Morissette.
We're just gonna talk through the top five.
Next song, Lil Baby, Right On.
- I wanna pause real quick.
- Yeah.
- Of just a moment where someone, you know,
just thinking about being a voracious reader
and someone walking into Ezra's library
and he's like, oh yeah, I'm a voracious reader.
And he sees the Terrence Trent Darby biography.
The 38th special biography.
Pearl Jam is a stretch, but that one makes sense.
(laughing)
- Pearl Jam is like Charles Dickens by comparison.
I'm looking up if there even is a 38th special.
- Book?
- Book.
- There's gotta be.
I mean, if I'm honest, I was thinking
as I like burned through Haydn's Pearl Jam book,
just loving it, I was like,
I probably could just read music books back to back to back.
There is something about reading books about like bands.
I'm just like in heaven.
- Imagine when like Hornsby says, I'm a voracious reader.
You know, I'm reading.
- Oh, you're voracious Hornsby?
How many books about 38th special have you read?
- You have to read this Terrence Trent Darby book.
- I don't see anything in 38th special.
There's no book.
- There's no book about,
well, it's hard to search because of the gun.
- I found booking information.
- Oh yeah?
- But not a book.
- Oh, I should have got them play it my birthday.
♪ I swear it's over for him ♪
♪ I done gave my feelings up ♪
♪ I don't know who to trust ♪
♪ Coming up missing at the spot ♪
♪ I don't know who to bust ♪
♪ She my gangsta ♪
♪ I gave her racks and told her she dashed that ♪
♪ Love it when you throw it back like ♪
♪ Damn you know that ♪
♪ You know I'm a blast back ♪
♪ You know I'm way past that ♪
- Damn, I'm going to have to write the book
about 38th special.
- Great use of time.
Okay, the number three song of 88 is Whitney Houston.
Where do broken hearts go?
(soft music)
- Oh yeah, this one.
(soft music)
♪ I know it's been some time ♪
♪ But there's something on my mind ♪
♪ You see I had to say ♪
- So this is from her Blockbuster debut album,
which had four Billboard number ones.
To date, only four other albums by women
have received four or more hot 100 number ones.
Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" in '88,
Janet Jackson "Rhythm Nation 1814" in '89,
this one, which is also '88,
Mariah Carey's self-titled debut in 1990,
and Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" in 2010.
- Wow.
- That's interesting 'cause even with these
Blockbuster artists today,
the idea of having multiple four number one singles
from your album just doesn't make sense anymore
'cause you wouldn't be able to string along
a run of singles across two years
the same way that they could back in the day.
It's like Taylor Swift puts out a new album,
the fans eat it up, but the idea that
three of the songs from that album
are gonna go number one over the next 18 months
just doesn't really make sense.
- Or I feel like, yeah, they'll be like
seven of the songs will be in the top 10 for two weeks.
That happens a lot.
- It's interesting how, yeah,
like Whitney, Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey,
all in that short window between '88 and '90.
- Burst on the scene.
- But you're right, there was something about
the conditions of the record industry in that time.
- Yeah, it's like when you look at those
Blockbuster Michael Jackson albums from the '80s,
for instance, it's always some wild thing
like where it's like, oh, "Bad" came out, whatever, 1987,
and then it's like, in February 1989,
"Dirty Diana" went to radio and raced up the charts.
It's just like, they could just work it.
- You know who was probably the last person to do that
was Katy Perry, one of those early albums.
I feel like she had like two years off of one album, yeah.
- That's the last one in this list,
Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" in 2010,
where, yeah, you'd be kind of aware of it
'cause whatever the first single was like "California Girls"
and then like a year later, like the video just dropped
for "E.T." (laughs)
Remember that song with the Kanye verse?
- Yeah.
♪ Somebody loves you ♪
♪ Won't they always love you ♪
- Next song is "Little Baby" in a minute.
All right, we're not listening to
"Little Baby" songs in a row, no disrespect,
but we just gotta keep things moving.
Then we're on the number two song of 1988,
"In Excess" with "Devil Inside."
♪ Devil inside ♪
- Unbelievable song.
- This reminds me of Terrence Trent Darby.
This is a real 1988 music.
- I was gonna say, even their look is similar.
- Yeah.
Like physically they look similar.
♪ Look in her eye ♪
♪ There's not a lever with flesh on the line ♪
♪ Words and weapons, shoveling knives ♪
♪ Makes one half of the other half die ♪
♪ Of the half die ♪
♪ Makes one half of the other half live ♪
- This is fascinating.
In '99, Darby collaborated with "In Excess"
to replace Michael Hutchinson.
- Wow, good call, Michael Hutchins.
- Wow, Michael Hutchins, yeah.
Great call.
♪ Look at them go ♪
♪ Look at them kick ♪
♪ Makes one half of the other half live ♪
♪ And the other half dies ♪
♪ Devil inside, devil inside ♪
♪ Every single one of us, the devil inside ♪
♪ Devil inside, devil inside ♪
- "Surprise" is such a big hit.
I mean, it's cool,
but like it's made it to number two on the charts,
only in '88.
- Yeah, the production's cool.
The song itself is like, hmm.
- Again, the video, man.
- I hate this riff.
(imitates riff)
That riff sucks.
- Do you remember the video?
Or did you also miss this?
- I would've turned it off.
I would've been like, this song sucks.
I'm turning the channel.
- Is there some U2 songs very similar to this?
- I hear it, for sure, yeah.
♪ Look at the pieces ♪
- "Devil Inside" video directed by Joel Shoemaker.
- Hell yeah.
- How's your mockery, Shoemaker?
- Yeah, he directed the movie "Lost Boys,"
which includes some "In Excess" on the soundtrack.
All right, get the idea.
- Oh, our boy Harry Styles is back.
I heard there was a new Harry Styles song.
I haven't heard it yet.
Okay, now first of all,
interesting to see where this goes
because the first song that we ever heard
on this show from Harry Styles
was his kind of like Bowie-esque song
that it was like kind of very analog sounding.
- Oh yeah.
- "Sign of the Times."
- I got a text from my mom over the weekend
asking if I'd heard this song.
- Wow. - Because she thinks
that he's ripping off "Vampire Weekend."
- Oh dear.
- So, and she said, "Does Ezra know about this song
or did he work on it?"
- What the (beep)
- So, okay, but- - I'm glad you brought this up.
- First of all, you can't put me in an awkward position.
- I'm just telling you what my mom said.
- How does your mom hear this song?
- All due respect, Mrs. Weidenfeld,
I can't be getting into lawsuits right now.
Can't bring that energy.
No, and I've met Harry here and there, very nice guy.
I don't know how my mom heard it.
I don't know.
But she texted and then called me specifically about this
because she thought that Ezra should be involved.
If he wasn't, then money is owed.
- Did she use the phrase swagger jacker?
Did she say that he jacked as for swagger?
- If you know my mom, yes.
- No.
- Well, I'll tell you one thing before we hear it is
I've over the years, as you can imagine,
I've had many people hear something and say,
oh my God, this sounds so much like Vampire Weekend
or did you work on--
This has happened many times.
I almost never hear what they're saying.
The only time that I--
I remember this low budget movie
that had just straight up a fake A-punk
and a fake Oxford comma in the trailer in it.
I've always been meaning to look it up.
It was just some low budget comedy.
And I was like, it was literally just like,
it opened like--
[imitates opening of Vampire Weekend]
Dun, dun,
[imitates opening of Vampire Weekend]
It was just like, that was--
I remember being like, okay, I hear it.
[laughs]
Yep, I can hear it.
But there's been so many times where people say,
oh, this bent.
And I've just always felt like,
I just can't hear it because sometimes I just feel like,
maybe because I know so clearly what our influences are
that when somebody plays me something,
I'll just be like, yeah,
they're probably listening to the same [beep]
or they're doing a similar guitar tone.
Anyway, that's interesting you say that, Nick,
'cause my question was,
the second album was a little more like pop
and I was kind of wondering,
is this gonna be getting back to that analog Bowie [beep]
gonna be a little more pop
or is it gonna be yet another thing?
Well, all right, let's throw it on.
- Come on, Harry, we wanna say goodnight to you.
[upbeat music]
♪ Holding me back ♪
♪ Gravity's holding me back ♪
♪ I want you to hold out the palm of your hand ♪
♪ Why don't we leave it at that ♪
♪ Nothing to say ♪
- I love that the album's called Harry's House.
That's tight.
♪ And I'm the one who'll stay ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ In this world ♪
♪ It's just us ♪
♪ You know it's not the same as it was ♪
♪ In this world ♪
♪ It's just us ♪
♪ You know it's not the same as it was ♪
♪ As it was ♪
♪ As it was ♪
♪ You know it's not the same ♪
♪ Answer the phone ♪
♪ Harry, you're no good alone ♪
♪ Why are you sitting at home alone ♪
♪ What kind of pill do you want ♪
- This song is co-written and produced by Kid Harpoon,
also a nice guy, but interestingly,
he was an artist on XL in the really early era
when Vampire Weekend was.
Like, before he was this kind of like
well-known producer/songwriter,
he was dropping albums under the name Kid Harpoon,
I think in like 2009, like right when we were on XL.
- I hear what Nancy is saying.
I don't think I would have thought of it
if Nick hadn't mentioned that.
The beginning kind of reminded me of like,
of like The Weekend.
- Yo, I was about to say that.
It's a more indie aesthetic version
of The Weekend's "Aha" song.
- Exactly, yeah.
- Wait, yeah, actually, throw on that bit,
The Weekend, "Blinding Lights."
It's kind of like a similar tempo.
- I think that my mom was probably responding
to the, literally, his vocal quality
as to how you sing. - I can hear it.
Yeah, 'cause this is like,
it's doing kind of like an '80s thing
with that (sings)
- Yeah.
- I like that song.
Yeah, this is like a totally different aesthetic,
but it's, folks, the tempos are going up.
The last couple of tempos are getting real slow
the past couple of years that are back.
- Those BPMs are up to 140, they're up to 150.
- Yep.
Yeah, I feel like these songs are like
two sides of the same coin,
with a similar kind of riff.
(sings)
- Yeah, 'cause it's like,
what vampire song would be the reference point?
I don't know, I mean.
- Yeah, we don't have anything with that.
- Giving Up The Gun, which is like 12, 13 years old.
Or maybe not that one.
I don't know, I can't really place it.
- I appreciate it sometimes when people just hear something
and they feel like the vibe is like,
yeah, they just might mean the spirit
or something about the vocals.
What context did you meet Harry Styles in?
- No, just like parties.
- Gotcha.
- One time at a sushi restaurant.
- Running, random running.
- Yeah, I think he was having lunch with his manager,
I was having lunch with my manager,
the managers know each other.
Just straight up, just some like LA (beep)
Say, "Hey, what's up, man?"
- What neighborhood are we talking?
- I don't wanna blow up his spot, but you know,
the West side of Los Angeles.
- I mean, he's getting, okay,
getting lunch with his manager.
I mean, are we talking West Hollywood?
Are we talking--
- Holo Lounge, outdoors, no question.
- Gotcha.
- No, no, this is pre-COVID, it was indoors.
This is a sushi spot.
- All right, all right, all right.
I don't mean to pry, I don't mean to pry.
- No, no, as discussed, I live a semi-retired
curb your, indie rock curb your enthusiasm lifestyle.
One day I'm making small talk with a restauranteur saying,
"Hey, you ever think about a horse meat?
"Think about it."
I'm having those kinds of conversations.
The next day it's like,
I'm having lunch with my version of Jeff.
And we sit there and go, "Hey, look at that,
"it's Harry Salson and his manager.
"What's up?"
(laughing)
Then I go watch TV the rest of the day.
- You ever think about, you ever eaten horse meat?
(laughing)
- Harry, I heard the new album's called Harry's House.
How about this, Harry's Horse.
We build a whole unbanned horse meat campaign around it.
- Come on. - Think about it.
Think about it, Harry.
There's some money in that horse meat.
(laughing)
- Oh my God.
Oh, hell yeah.
- Number one song, 1988, Billy Ocean,
Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car.
Great title. - Great title.
Also produced by Mutt Lang.
- Interesting producer.
- Right when he was working with,
or right after he worked with Def Leppard on Hysteria.
- Yeah.
- I thought of asking Bruce if he was a Def Leppard fan
'cause I listened to the new song three times this morning
and the word hysteria is like prominent in the chorus.
- Oh yeah.
- And I just immediately go to like, "Hysteria."
- Oh, great question.
You gotta have him back.
- I feel like it would have just landed with a thud.
- I could see Bruce might've said,
"You know, Jake, I remember Def Leppard.
"Wasn't particularly a fan.
"I did like the song Photograph."
I kinda wanted to ask Bruce--
- I met Bill Elliott once at a sushi restaurant.
I was having lunch with my manager.
He was having lunch with his manager.
This must've been '86.
You know, I have to say,
his recall of years is very admirable.
- Oh yeah, I love that.
That's why he's the perfect TC guest.
- Yeah.
- He remembers his years.
You know what question I wanna ask Bruce
that I was thinking about listening to the song is,
do you have any relationship with Dave Matthews Band,
being Virginia-based?
Do you like them?
You ever jam with them?
There's ways in which their music intersects.
It's very obliquely, but.
- Well, I can see some of the more out there Bruce stuff
intersecting with Dave Matthews.
- Yeah, and you could see,
I mean, Bruce on piano for a Dave Matthews album
would just be like, work so well.
- Yeah, makes complete sense.
- It would be excellent.
♪ Into my car ♪
♪ Out of my mind ♪
♪ Get into my life ♪
♪ I said hey, hey, you, you ♪
♪ Get into my life ♪
- This song was part of the soundtrack
to the '88 film "License to Drive,"
which starred the two Corys,
Corey Feldman and Corey Haim.
- Corey's a funny name.
- Yeah, that name really fell off.
- That's an awkward name.
Not a lot of Corys anymore.
That's a rough one.
- I just wanna shout out the TC heads out there
because many, many episodes ago,
you brought up this fake Oxford comma trailer,
the song used in the trailer, you know?
And the heads found it.
And it's a movie called "The Strip."
- Okay, wait, can we listen to it?
The Strip trailer?
- Starring Dave Foley.
Yep, it's coming out.
- Oh, Dave Foley's legit.
- Who's legit, but he's the legit one.
- Yeah, 'cause I remember,
no, now that you mentioned it,
I remember that Dave Foley was in it.
And at the time, in music biz,
when people think your song got ripped off,
you're always gonna have somebody saying,
"Oh, do you wanna pursue some action or something?"
And it's a pretty uncool thing to do, man,
is to go after somebody, even if they ripped you off.
It has to be an insane situation,
I think, that that's actually worth doing.
And I remember looking at this and I was like,
first of all, I love kids in the hall,
like any good alternative '90s youth.
So I was like, I'm not gonna bring any drama
to Dave Foley's universe, absolutely not.
I wish him the best.
- I think that was a smart thing to do.
So I think it's at about 50 seconds into the trailer.
♪ Get out of my car ♪
(laughing)
- Great line.
♪ And get out of my dreams ♪
♪ Get into my car ♪
♪ Get out of my car ♪
- I want us to start out with just a basic
team building exercise.
First word that comes to your head.
The nice lady had two huge bodyguards.
Come on, man, you blew it.
Guys, territory.
- Oh, yeah, all right.
- I think it's better than Sony.
- What year is this?
- Can you tell me about your dad owning the store?
- Here we go, '99.
- He has a plan, so I think I should count it
by the time I'm 30.
- Until one day, everything changed.
- Sales have been down. - Wow.
- Am I being demoted?
- And they were forced to take inventory.
- I need a replacement. - Oh, this is a fake A-fuck.
- Of their lives.
- This is the first time you guys have ever been in a store?
- She's hot.
- I'm just a guy.
- Oxford comma was just straight up Oxford comma.
- These are pretty egregious.
I'm not watching it like the viewers
were also just listening to it.
And the dialogue, that sounds like it's from like 1992.
It sounds so old school.
All right, and we're going to go out
on the number one song on Apple Music right now,
Jack Harlow with "First Class."
Thanks so much to our legendary guest, Bruce Hornsby.
We'll see everybody in two weeks, peace.
♪ I been a E-L-A-N-O-R-O-U-N-A ♪
♪ And I can put you in first class ♪
♪ Up in the clouds ♪
♪ I can put you in first class ♪
♪ Up in the clouds ♪
♪ I been a E-L-A-N-O-R-O-U-N-A ♪
♪ And I can put you in first class ♪
♪ Up in the clouds ♪
♪ I can put you in first class ♪
♪ Up in the clouds ♪
♪ I can see the whole city from this balcony ♪
♪ Back in 2019 I was outside freely ♪
♪ Now they got it out for me ♪
♪ I don't care what frat that you was in ♪
♪ You can't out for me, keep dreaming ♪
♪ Pineapple juice I give a sweet ♪
♪ Sweet, sweet ♪
♪ I know what they like so I just keep cheesing ♪
♪ Hard drive full of heat seeking ♪
♪ Tryna come the same day as Jack rethinking ♪
♪ You don't need Givenchy, you need Jesus ♪
♪ Why do y'all sleep on me, I need reasons ♪
♪ I got plex in the mail peak season ♪
♪ Shout out to my UPS workers making sure I receive it ♪
♪ You can do it too, believe it ♪
♪ I been a E-S-S-A-N-O-R-O-U-S-E ♪
♪ And I can put you in first class ♪
♪ Up in the clouds ♪
♪ I can put you in first class ♪
- [Announcer] Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
(snorting)
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