Episode 1243 - James Murphy
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck nicks what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast it keeps going
Marc:The podcast continues.
Marc:It keeps going.
Marc:How was how's everything with you guys?
Marc:How was the weekend?
Marc:Everything all right?
Marc:The comedy's been OK.
Marc:I'm OK.
Marc:I'm relatively healthy.
Marc:I get up.
Marc:I do the yogas.
Marc:I do the meditating.
Marc:I talk to the cats.
Marc:But there's some heavy heartedness going on.
Marc:I had a dream about Lynn.
Marc:It was a bizarre one.
Marc:It was nice to see her, though.
Marc:Hadn't seen her in a while.
Marc:But it was this giant space.
Marc:It was like a white, it was almost like a dome, like a white dome, like the size of many football fields.
Marc:It was an expansive space that was, it felt outdoors, but it was indoor.
Marc:It was grass.
Marc:It was like a huge field.
Marc:And I walk into this space.
Marc:It was almost like the Truman Show.
Marc:And I'm supposed to perform there, but I don't know.
Marc:I can't tell where anyone's going to sit or where to even stand.
Marc:It just seems too big.
Marc:There's no center to it.
Marc:There's no point of focus.
Marc:And I'm like, do I just stand here?
Marc:Where are the people going to be?
Marc:And it's just expansive, but clearly inside in almost like a field.
Marc:And someone says, your guitar's over there.
Marc:And it was way over there, like a half a mile away, leaned up like on a chair.
Marc:And I walked all the way over there.
Marc:I'm like, am I supposed to play?
Marc:I mean, that seems like, how am I going to work this room?
Marc:It's huge.
Marc:Like, it seems like miles wide.
Marc:How do I work that space?
Marc:I walk over.
Marc:I just like walk all the way across to where the guitar is.
Marc:And there's a little seating area.
Marc:And Lynn is there.
Marc:And I hug her and she tells me that Marlon Wayans will be available for the podcast the closer we get to the Respect movie.
Marc:And I'm like, why are you telling me that?
Marc:And I'm like, do you still love me?
Marc:She goes, yes.
Marc:Do you love me?
Marc:I'm like, yes.
Marc:And then there was just a moment where we hung out for a second and I woke up.
Marc:I think Marlon Wayans kind of fucked up that dream for me.
Marc:Like, how did he wedge his way?
Marc:Why did that bit of information, because I am going to talk to him before respect opens, but why did that have to worm its way into hanging out with Lynn?
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Dreams are tricky, right?
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:James Murphy is on the show today from LCD Sound System.
Marc:It was a long time.
Marc:I'll tell you, I got feelings about it.
Marc:Somehow or another, to be honest with you, to be candid, to be upfront, I missed LCD sound system.
Marc:I missed the entire event of it.
Marc:I missed a lot of bands in the early aughts, mid aughts, whatever.
Marc:I don't know what I was doing.
Marc:I wasn't involved with music.
Marc:I wasn't doing comedy.
Marc:I was wandering around doing comedy.
Marc:And then I was out here trying to get traction doing comedy.
Marc:I didn't give that much of a fuck.
Marc:about music you know i listened to it i i was you know i tried to stay up to speed but i was not in it like i am now and i for some reason i remember a while back i did a short i did some sort of short doc voiceover for dfa records but i always you know my experience with lcd sound system is like well these guys are kind of white people dance music it's kind of i can hear all what they are i can hear what they're drawing from i hear the talking heads i hear some bowie i hear some fall i hear
Marc:I guess like some I don't really know the Smiths, but the cures in there like I I understand the sources, but I didn't really give it a deep listen, but I could never get a handle on James.
Marc:You know, I and I and I sort of dismissed it and I was sort of cranky about it and I and I projected a lot of stuff onto him that.
Marc:I knew nothing about.
Marc:And he's been sort of hovering, not hovering, but he's been on the periphery of the show for a while.
Marc:And I finally just locked into the music and really kind of leaned into it and listened to it.
Marc:And it's great.
Marc:It's very easy to listen to.
Marc:There's a lot of great music there, a lot of great production, great songs.
Marc:But I still don't know who James is, really.
Marc:So...
Marc:I was looking forward to, with some apprehension, talking to him.
Marc:And we did it.
Marc:We did the conversation.
Marc:And, of course, we have things in common, and I get it.
Marc:I wish I had the discipline some people have.
Marc:Not even discipline.
Marc:I wish I was obsessed in a more focused way that had more follow-through.
Marc:I wish I was compulsive and obsessed with...
Marc:In a nerdy way that would force me to fully immerse myself in nuance of any one thing, as opposed to sort of like go all in, you know, get satisfied and then get out.
Marc:Where's the commitment?
Marc:So James Murphy is here and he doesn't have to put, he's not plugging anything.
Marc:It was just time for us to talk.
Marc:That's all that, you know, and I got up to speed as much as I could on LCD.
Marc:I enjoy LCD sound system.
Marc:I enjoyed the records and I like, he's a good friend.
Marc:He's a good friend of my buddy, Sam Whipsight.
Marc:He's a friend of Sharplings.
Marc:We have friends in common and it was a nice talk.
Marc:So this is me talking to James Murphy.
Marc:You've got those headphones.
Marc:It doesn't sound like they're a good thing.
Guest:No, I just like I wish there was a way I could turn up or down how much transparency.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:I mean, I can't like I'm just doing GarageBand and I, you know, and that's that's too much for me.
Marc:I don't even know what the full extent of what GarageBand does.
Marc:I just know how to do the voice thing.
Guest:You just record yourself and that's it.
Marc:I record myself or if someone's sitting in here, I record them and I ride the levels on my dumb little six channel mixer that I don't understand.
Marc:But I believe that I've convinced myself, James, that that my lack of intelligence or know how around this stuff gives me integrity.
Guest:Well, I mean, you and I are similar age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I'm 57.
Guest:Well, I mean, at one point.
Guest:I was your age.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:At one point.
Guest:No, at one point we were very different ages.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I'm 51.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now we're basically the same age.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because nobody gives a shit about the discrepancy of dudes in their 50s.
Guest:Nobody wants to hear that nobody's like, oh, no, we're totally 51 and 57.
Guest:That's not a distinction anyone cares about.
Marc:Well, you sort of level off somehow.
Marc:It seems like you were a lot more excited and interested about things than I was.
Marc:But do you have children?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I have two kids.
Marc:Oh, well, see, that makes you very different than me.
Marc:I'm still just a fucking idiot with a record player.
Guest:It doesn't stop me from being an idiot with a record player, but I know I'm an idiot with a record player who have people... That fuck with your record player.
Guest:Well, remarkably, I've gotten both of them to not do that too much.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And my youngest son, my older one, who's my son, really likes...
Guest:records and he's always liked records and it was it took a little time for him to not fuck with the records yeah how old is he he's six oh okay my my daughter uh she's only pulled a couple of records off of a shelf whereas for him it was a while of being like stop doing that stop doing that stop doing that
Marc:So he's really interested, and he remains interested.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He's a music person, and it remains to be seen she can't speak yet.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Well, I think that I have cats, and they're actually worse with records.
Marc:There's more to worry about with cats and records.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I had a cat scratching up the hole, destroying the entire spine.
Marc:Yeah, they destroy everything.
Marc:So I guess we have a common friend in Sam Lipsight.
Guest:We do.
Guest:We do have a very good common friend in Sam Lipsight.
Marc:Yeah, I love Sam, and I talk to him frequently.
Marc:We're currently developing a television show together, actually.
Guest:I'm so sorry.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We're not in active development.
Marc:We're just trying to sell it, man.
Guest:I mean, I tried to develop a show with Sam, and it got me nowhere.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah, we worked on a show for a while.
Marc:What was that about?
Guest:We worked with our friend Jay Green, Jason Green.
Guest:And it was initially called The Worst.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then there was a show that came out and got picked up called You're the Worst, I think.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we were like, the best?
Guest:It went nowhere.
Guest:When was that?
Guest:Oh, years ago.
Guest:It's a...
Guest:I want to say it was like two years ago, but that probably means about six years ago.
Marc:So somewhere in the interim between the, or after you retired.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it started before we started playing again.
Marc:Was that, was TV writing something?
Marc:Cause I know you have some of it in your past somehow, or at least were like thought of, uh, to do it.
Marc:Was that, uh, one of the, uh, beginnings of your creative, uh, ideas for yourself?
Yeah.
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:This was a weird little lark.
Guest:I was like, hey, let's make a show.
Guest:And it was basically, my friend Jay's really funny.
Guest:I think he needs a vehicle.
Guest:That was my sort of feeling.
Guest:It's like, I really want a vehicle for my friend Jay.
Guest:Let's help Jay out.
Guest:i want to but and i want it well i just think i want to see it so it's helping me it's helping him um it's helping the world and of course i was like let's let's write a show together you know together with him and i was like and then we decided we why don't we call sam because we like sam and uh and it seemed like why not why don't these three guys just hang out once in a while and try to show a genius it's gonna be great ourselves we made ourselves laugh
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did you actually get into the selling of it?
Guest:Well, this was the mistake I made, I think.
Guest:My first instinct was like, look, let's just make a pilot.
Guest:Like, I'll just get some money together.
Guest:We had shot the LCD film, and that was shot by Reed Murano primarily, who was like a super cinematographer and now is like a big director, and she's like a good friend.
Guest:And I was like, maybe she'll help us shoot the pilot.
Guest:Like, we know enough good people.
Marc:That was the big concert movie, the final concert thing?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:In the doc, yeah.
Guest:And I was like, we know enough good people that we can, you know, get something together.
Guest:That's what I wanted to do.
Guest:And then suddenly we got into like, well, maybe, you know, I do have a manager and a manager works with people and I have an agent at William Morris.
Guest:Maybe we can get somebody to help develop it.
Guest:And that just was a big mistake because we started talking to somebody.
Guest:And then...
Guest:They were like, yeah, I can totally help.
Guest:And then they were like, oh, I don't know.
Guest:Maybe we need to, could we do a table read?
Guest:It just became, as opposed to me just being like, why don't I make this dumb thing?
Guest:It's going to cost me X amount of money.
Guest:We're not going to go crazy.
Guest:We're going to do it in an apartment.
Guest:The scenes in an apartment, we'll use our friend's apartment.
Guest:The scenes outside, we'll just steal.
Guest:Like, who cares?
Guest:I can borrow a camera, rent a camera.
Guest:Let's just do it, and then we'll have a pilot.
Guest:And if nobody picks it up, at least we have this show we can show our friends, and we're happy.
Guest:Or we can go down the self-doubt road where you're getting people's opinions before anybody's seen anything.
Guest:And you do a table read and you're like, does this make any sense?
Guest:And then Jay's like, why don't we do it without me in it?
Guest:And I'm like, what's the point of that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we kind of just lost momentum.
Guest:And that's the second time that's happened to me in my life.
Guest:A third time that's happened to me in my life.
Guest:And that should be Three Strikes and that I should never do it again.
Marc:With TV writing specifically?
Guest:No, with projects.
Guest:Like I've only ever been happy when I'm just like, I'm going to do this dumb thing that's a bad idea.
Guest:And then I do it.
Guest:In the 80s, I used to record on four track.
Guest:I had a cassette four track.
Guest:um and it's much different than where you're sitting now it's much different than where it is and it isn't yeah um i was an autodidact so i kind of like figured this stuff out and just made recordings all the time and i really liked them so it was one of those things where you could just sit by yourself and lay the drums down lay the guitar down you could actually probably get eight tracks out of it if you were clever
Guest:Well, what I would do, I could get six tracks because I could do four tracks of like drums, bass, guitar, something else.
Guest:And then I'd mix them down to two and then I'd get two more tracks.
Guest:So I'd have the instrumental mix and then I'd do vocals or whatever on the other tracks.
Guest:And when I was 17 in 1987, I decided I'm going to put a record out.
Guest:I'm going to go to a real studio.
Guest:and record yeah and so I saved up all my money and I worked and I rented the studio time and I went and it was a disaster because I had this guy I remember this guy who's I'm sure the nicest guy in the world who's doing his best uh
Guest:And he was talking about the pyramid of sound.
Guest:I'd be like, okay, I want the bass through this guitar amp.
Guest:It's all treble-y and it's got reverb on it.
Guest:He's like, you know what?
Guest:Let me tell you about the pyramid of sound.
Guest:Down here is the bass and the kick drum.
Guest:And then on top of that, you might have your piano.
Guest:And I was just like...
Guest:This sucks.
Guest:Like, I don't want to make a fucking Fleetwood Mac record.
Guest:Like, everything I listen to is all scrappy and weird sounding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And instead, I just got bullied in this, like... I got pushed around.
Guest:A Fleetwood Mac record?
Guest:And no, but it just was neither.
Guest:It sounded like... It winds up sounding like a jingle.
Guest:Like, because it's neither...
Marc:what i would make which is so he couldn't honor your vision because you didn't work together and he was just an engineer trying to do his job for a kid that's got an idea yeah i'm like a 17 year old kid who's only just recorded himself and doesn't know how mics work and you wanted him to just magically understand why you wanted the bass to sound like uh you know a rebel a car rumbling or something
Guest:I wouldn't know that that was a thing.
Guest:I had never experienced trying to communicate with people about music.
Guest:For me, it was like I would just keep doing this until I was happy.
Marc:But it seems like this was actually the mountain you chose to die on.
Guest:Well, they're all mountains I choose to die on.
Marc:But I mean, like that, that dynamic right there, you know, it seems for you getting the sounds you want out of the equipment with the people you want to do.
Marc:That was the life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's basically, that's, that's basically the whole thing.
Guest:I don't really... I don't do much else.
Marc:So that didn't work out, but ultimately that journey kind of paid off.
Guest:Yeah, when we made the... Early days of DFA Records, we had the Rapture.
Marc:Who's your partner in that?
Marc:Jonathan, is that his name?
Marc:Jonathan?
Marc:John Galkin, yeah.
Marc:Although he started his own label now.
Marc:Oh, well, Galkin... I feel like we were...
Marc:Talking about talking many years ago, like Galkin was sending me records probably in 2012, 11 or 12, I think.
Marc:I remember like Prince Horn Dance Hall, is that?
Marc:Dance school, yeah.
Marc:Prince Horn Dance School.
Marc:I love those records.
Marc:Yes, me too.
Marc:He was sending me a lot of records and I, you know, oddly, and I'll just give you some background on me and you, like I somehow missed the event of LCD.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I don't know what I was doing.
Marc:I don't know where I was, but there's a whole-
Marc:No, but there was a whole chunk of life where I've only considered myself somebody who likes music, but I was just disconnected from music that was happening.
Marc:I think I was obsessed with comedy.
Marc:I don't know those years where they got lost or what I was prioritizing.
Marc:So in a lot of ways, I would look at you and I'd see you on a boat doing something.
Marc:Were you ever on a boat doing something?
Guest:Yes, yes, yes.
Guest:When you narrated the...
Marc:the movie the short film that's right that's right okay i was on a i was on the boat because right that they asked me to do the short film god damn i'm spacing all of it i'm like i don't what does this guy do is he on a boat he's got a beard what is he what is the this guy and i gotta be like and i would listen to your stuff here and there but like it wasn't until two days ago where i'm like i get it i get the whole thing now so it's all fresh to me james that's what i'm saying nice
Marc:And I enjoyed it and we like all the same things.
Marc:And I don't know why I prejudged everything, but I'm like, what's he doing on a boat?
Guest:So like, I, well, I mean, to be fair, you can't be judged.
Guest:You can't be hard on yourself for that because I, one, I played the fool in that on purpose.
Guest:Like I totally played the fool, which I was enjoying.
Guest:Like I was just being, I wasn't, if you were looking at that footage being like, what's this guy about?
Guest:I was giving you very little to go on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was playing the dummy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess if I would have known the history of you, you know, I would have got it.
Marc:But like, you know, I was just sort of being an earnest, you know?
Guest:Yeah, well, that's fine.
Guest:And also, I've come to the conclusion that at varying ebbs and arcs of my late era career, big chunks and swaths of the time, I would not have liked me.
Guest:For what reasons?
Guest:Not if I paid attention, but I think I could have been like, eh, you know, because I'm like, there's too many people saying shit about this guy.
Guest:I don't buy it.
Guest:Like, or whatever.
Guest:Like, I'm in no danger of being under, like...
Guest:I feel like I've gotten more than my due of appreciation and respect.
Guest:And there have been times when the noise around projects I'm working on have been louder than I would expect.
Guest:And I could see myself on the outside just being like, I don't want to hear about this guy.
Marc:Let me ask you, though, because going back to the same age thing, I spend a lot of time wondering whether or not I'm done.
Marc:And then...
Marc:On the other side of that, I spend a lot of time thinking like, well, would that be a terrible thing?
Marc:You know, why do I care?
Marc:You know, I'm OK financially.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:What is it that I what are we working for here?
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Am I just going to repeat myself?
Marc:It seems like I'm talking about the same things over again.
Marc:You know, and now I'm playing guitar with like I started rehearsing with a with a trio.
Marc:And I'm like, is this necessary?
Marc:Does the world need another 57 year old white dude thinking like play guitar now?
Marc:Like, I don't know.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.
Marc:Do you feel like you have realized yourself that you exist, that you are, you know, when people hear something like that, it's Murphy or, you know, like they, do you think that you are exactly who you're supposed to be?
Guest:I don't think that's possible.
Guest:I mean, I know what I'm annoyed with myself and with my work.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:There's not enough of it.
Guest:Not enough work?
Guest:Yeah, I'm not prolific enough.
Marc:That makes my job easier.
Marc:It's like, there's only four records?
Marc:Right.
Marc:But that's humiliating.
Guest:The Beatles knocked that out in two and a half years.
Marc:You can't compare yourself to the Beatles.
Marc:You tried.
Guest:No, I'm not.
Guest:But I'm just saying that in general, and I think part of that is the world, and everything is precious, and it all has to be perfect, and everything has to then be...
Guest:When I make a record, when a band made a record like a long time ago, they just made a record and they would maybe stop playing a couple of shows, going to the studio for a day and a half.
Guest:It's an album of the songs they've already been playing and no one's heard them unless they went and saw them.
Guest:yeah um whereas now it's like oh a record okay well i'm gonna make a record i'm gonna make it alone in the studio and i'm gonna make it for like six months because everything's got to be fucking you know rumors and and then when you're done with it then they turn into like oh that's great okay well we gotta do you have art i was like oh i gotta make the art okay so there's the art to make and then okay well there's that's great the record's done we need some content i'm like well isn't that the fucking content
Guest:And then you're like, no, we need a video and some content.
Guest:So we're going to do some.
Guest:And then every record's a world tour.
Guest:I mean, world tours were called world tours.
Guest:They were like a world tour, like Elton John world tour.
Guest:Because only people like Led Zeppelin or Elton John did them.
Guest:And they did them once.
Guest:Like, there'd be like the 1976 Yellow Brick Road tour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and you'd have jackets and they were like he went everywhere he was in japan like i dj in japan just because somebody thinks that maybe it's an idea yeah like the the kind of non-making a record commitments are just a lot bigger and so that naturally slows down like the kind of like making of music process like the ancillary shit right so you as a person now but that what the the
Marc:The type of record making you're talking about is of a certain level.
Marc:I mean, theoretically, you could do a record without all of that and maybe do more records.
Marc:But then the question is, would anyone give a shit?
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:I mean, the way I make records also happens to be a slow burn because I'm simultaneously living in the modern world where I can do whatever I want because there's limitless amounts of tracks in the digital world and all this other stuff.
Guest:But I also live in the kind of, I'm old enough that I kind of am stuck in this kind of Luddite world where I have to use a console and I do use real equipment and it's all very clumsy and cumbersome at the same time.
Marc:But you like that, don't you?
Marc:I mean, isn't that a choice?
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:But I mean, like, there's things that I think ran smoother when you couldn't do that because you'd have to get a bunch of really good musicians and you'd have to figure out the parts.
Guest:Then you'd go play it a few times and you'd be like, the third one's the one.
Marc:I was talking about that to the guy at the stereo store.
Marc:It's funny, because today, this morning, my big dilemma was like, hey, should I go pick up my Marantz 2275 that's being rebuilt before I talk to James, or should I wait?
Marc:And then I'm going to have to go... My life is revolving around old equipment and stuff.
Marc:But yesterday, I listened to the Bo Brummel's Bradley Barn record.
Marc:And then...
Marc:But I talked to the stereo guy because I just got these ridiculously expensive speakers.
Marc:And I was talking to him about how old records sound great on these ridiculously expensive speakers.
Marc:And he's like, yeah, that's because they didn't have to fuck with technology.
Marc:They didn't have to.
Marc:They just laid it down.
Marc:And that was that.
Marc:And it sounds perfect.
Marc:They have fewer phase concerns.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And but like what you're saying about prolific and also the distraction of being asked to DJ in Japan.
Marc:I mean, you know, I mean, I get what you're saying.
Marc:But did you do you feel it seems to me that less is more because you would have had a bigger opportunity to hack yourself.
Marc:And it doesn't seem you would you would probably would have driven yourself crazy if you were expected to churn out the same record over and over again.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, if I worked better with other people, it might be easier because I'd share sort of... You can bounce off people and get out of your head, but I'm just not good at that.
Marc:But you're essentially, I guess, on some level, it seems that...
Marc:from what I can feel of the music, you know, there's a lot of the stuff that I like involved in your brain, you know, like Cannes, Talking Heads, Eno, Bowie, you know, some people I don't know, but I kind of feel them at the edge of things.
Marc:And I can feel those references, but it seems like you're just infusing this into a type of dance music almost, right?
Marc:In a way.
Marc:Sometimes, yeah.
Guest:Sometimes straight up dance music, yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it seems like a good part of your job is that of a band leader.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, live, I mean, live, like LCD for, I think, is kind of two things.
Guest:It's records that I make, mostly make, with and without my friends.
Guest:And sometimes those friends are the members of the band LCD Sound System.
Guest:Sometimes they're just other friends.
Guest:I've been incredibly lucky late in life.
Guest:I don't mean late in life like I'm 70, but I mean like I didn't have a lot of friends in my teenage years or my 20s.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I'm a particular flavor, man.
Guest:Like I'm not that easy to get along with in some ways.
Marc:What type of like what was your specific asshole-ness?
Guest:I wasn't asshole-y.
Guest:I just wasn't that easy to be around.
Guest:I wasn't cool.
Guest:I wasn't laid back.
Guest:I'm not laid back.
Guest:I'm pretty uptight.
Marc:You weren't cool?
Guest:I'm not cool.
Guest:I would bring the cool level of a room down.
Guest:I was always the fart at the party.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Is this for going back to high school?
Marc:You grew up in New Jersey?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I found the cassettes.
Guest:of all my music that i've made i lost them for a long time and i found finally found these series of boxes of cassettes from the starting 1981 to 1991 it's like 10 years of just me making music on four track and stuff in high school yeah and before like junior high school high school yeah and what you were what did you play instruments
Guest:i played everything yeah i played drums and guitar and bass and keyboards and you were good at those things i was i was a good guitar player i was a much better guitar player than than i am now yeah but drums a lot a lot of times drum machine yeah um so i was good at that yeah press the buttons sounds would come out um so you're you're sitting at home in new jersey you have like would you have brothers and sisters
Guest:I do, but they're a lot older.
Guest:I'm a Catholic surprise.
Guest:I'm the fourth and last of an Irish family.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:So you're older parents?
Guest:My father was born in 1931.
Guest:My grandfather in 1898.
Guest:So, yeah.
Marc:So, like, you had a lot of, like, how many old, well, you got older brothers and sisters?
Guest:Nothing crazy.
Guest:Pretty small.
Guest:I mean, there were four of us.
Guest:So my older sister and brother are 10 and 11 years older than me.
Guest:but that means there was a lot of stuff at the house left over like music records yeah totally yeah i grew up i grew up listening to records and yeah my brothers and sisters records right like spent a lot of time doing that a lot of posters in their room kind of deal in my room no in their room your brother no more in my room i was the poster kid okay my brother had a couple of posters he was more into like prog rock and stuff oh so that plays in huh
Guest:Like, yes, and Utopia and Pink Floyd.
Marc:Can you get into Utopia?
Guest:I struggle with Utopia.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:And yes, you know, it was weird because I, like, when I listen to, you know, Losing My Edge or any of the stuff that you're talking, like, I'm so fucking late to this party.
Marc:Like, I just started, you know, getting into vinyl, you know, within the last decade, right?
Marc:And I grew up with Yes, you know, I'm seven years older than you, and Yes was like, outside of Roundabout and one other song, I was like, what an annoying bunch of dudes, you know?
Marc:And...
Marc:But, like, I put on one of their records.
Marc:I put on Fragile on The Good System.
Marc:Like, I bought it.
Marc:I didn't own it.
Marc:It's ridiculous.
Marc:It is ridiculous.
Marc:But you know what's ridiculous about it is, like, they're just a band.
Marc:You can hear the guys playing on that.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:At the time, it sounded alien because they were so, like... Exactly.
Guest:And you hear it now, and it sounds, like, rough.
Guest:It sounds like the blues.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And then you're sort of like, oh, my God, these guys were locked in, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:the bass player i mean that i love i have an absolute undying love for yes like chris squire the bass player his bass sound is almost identical to the bass sound in the stranglers it's just this screaming distorted bass sound and he controlled it ridiculously it's a they're a tough band yeah i had no idea i thought they were a bunch of pussies and i was like no this is real
Guest:I went on a huge yes.
Guest:I hit the revelation that you can find anything on YouTube one time.
Guest:I was like, wait a second.
Guest:I can just find out everything about yes?
Guest:That's weird now as an adult.
Guest:I went on this huge YouTube binge of every interview with everybody and all the live footage.
Guest:I just learned all these very strange things about them that I found really interesting.
Guest:like there's a lot of class stuff in that band where like chris squire and like bill bruford are like upper class kids and like john anderson's like more of a working class guy right and like like john anderson is like the kind of the singer he's like a little bit of the one who's like you know elves and fairies and and like but he's also the one that's like keeping the shit together like he's like yeah yeah yeah no we're do we're yes this is what we're doing like and and and
Guest:I feel like he was like ride or die in a way, that some of the other guys were less so.
Guest:But do you do Crimson?
Guest:I like them.
Guest:There are things about King Crimson that I like the most, but I have funny feelings about... I don't like the funny stick bass.
Guest:That drives me nuts.
Marc:Just the idea of it?
Guest:The sound of it, the idea.
Guest:The bass was fine.
Marc:It does sound a little...
Guest:weird stiff bass is a great instrument let's just let's let's wait till we beat it but there was something annoying about that what's his name levin the guy with his head shaved he's got the dumb bass you know yes images counts for a lot you know yeah and it's corny as shit yeah and but i have a i have feelings about frip who's like a real a partial hero to me i i
Marc:You know, I got turned on to him when I was like, I have a weird sort of I have sort of a blues based brain.
Marc:But like when I was in high school, I worked at a bagel place next to this record store.
Marc:And one of the guys there was one of the sort of an art rock guy.
Marc:And he turned me on to, you know, League of Gentlemen and Frippin Eno when I was in high school.
Marc:And I couldn't quite wrap my brain around it.
Marc:But then I grew... When Scary Monsters came out, I was like, holy shit, what is this?
Marc:And I guess Heroes, too.
Marc:But one time, he was kind of a dick to me on an airplane, and that ruined it for a few years.
Marc:But I'm okay with him now.
Guest:It doesn't surprise me.
Guest:No, I just feel like he's...
Guest:I feel like the ways in which I feel like musical insecurities and confidences play out in each musician, it determines whether I'm going to like them or not.
Guest:And I think the way they play out in Fripp, I do not like.
Guest:The way that I think he's one of the most gifted musicians
Guest:He's really skilled, obviously.
Guest:He's practiced a lot.
Guest:He's a very good guitar player.
Guest:But I think he's one of the most gifted natural guitar players.
Guest:I feel like he's a very gifted natural musician.
Guest:I feel like his sense of where things go is beautiful.
Guest:But I think something in him seems to not trust that.
Guest:So when he writes music, when he's composing, when he's like, hey, here's the King Crimson song, it's like, here's this great part.
Guest:And now it's fucking annoying for eight bars.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm like, he just has to ruin it.
Guest:Whereas when you're like, hey, Eno and Bowie are like, come on over and play some guitar.
Guest:He's incredible.
Guest:The stuff that comes out of him naturally is amazing.
Guest:He's like as if there was somebody who's a great actor who could just do it, but then they're going to go do some weird method thing and ruin it.
Marc:Yeah, it's like that scene in Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid where, you know, they got to shoot the wood chip to prove that they can shoot.
Marc:And he just stands still and he's shooting at it and he misses it.
Marc:And Strother Martin's like, that's terrible.
Marc:And he's like, well, can I move?
Marc:Then he like, he jumps into his little stance and boom, boom, boom, boom.
Marc:Of course, you know, the natural thing.
Marc:And when he was trying to do it, it was terrible.
Marc:But when he was just allowed to be himself, he could do it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I just think there's sometimes that's, but I think we don't necessarily value what we're good at because it feels automatic.
Marc:Well, yeah, because it can't be enough, obviously, if you're of a certain type.
Marc:But have you watched those videos of him and his wife?
Marc:I think you really see him.
Marc:No.
Marc:They're doing all these YouTube videos where they're covering songs.
Marc:She comes out in like a costume and they're doing like Nirvana and Sabbath and she's singing and he's just standing there with a Les Paul playing these fucking songs.
Marc:No, I haven't seen any of that.
Marc:Oh, you got to go watch that because, you know, it's it's just he's not it's happening in the moment.
Marc:He's not making he's got no self-consciousness at all.
Marc:And you can really see how he's sort of it's like, you know, like Jimmy Page.
Marc:There's a clunkiness to it that you would never expect.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I would just like, I mean, there'd be very few guitar players I'd rather have.
Guest:I'd rather be like, just come play once.
Guest:Have you done that with him?
Guest:No, I've never, I don't do that with anybody.
Marc:Well, okay.
Marc:So let's get back to that.
Marc:Well, before we get back to that, it's like, again, like when I was in New York and I was just sitting around, I had one can cassette because Rollins had said he liked can.
Marc:And I, you know, I couldn't fucking lock in and now I can't get enough of that.
Marc:And then when I listened to some of the, you know, the LCD stuff, just the length and the process of, of,
Marc:how it builds, it's a lot like Cannes.
Marc:You must have listened to a lot of those guys.
Guest:A lot of Cannes.
Guest:That's one of my all-time favorite bands, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and I think as a model, sort of similar to, they don't always all of a sudden make a record when you're not like, what the fuck is this?
Marc:But there is an evolution and a difference in how they approach a lot of different stuff, and it seems like as a model, that's probably closer to what you do than most things, huh?
Guest:Well, yeah, except for a couple of key things, which are can or people who...
Guest:were like conservatory, hyper-trained conservatory musicians.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ermin Schmidt, the keyboard player, won this Young Conductor Award.
Guest:He went to New York with this, having won this European Young Conductor Award.
Guest:All these guys taught at conservatories and were hyper-educated classical and jazz musicians.
Guest:Jackie Liebsey was like...
Guest:the premier European free jazz drummer.
Guest:So they were all like these super high level people.
Guest:And then, you know, they heard the Velvet Underground and shit and were just like, let's just go be repetitive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then played together eight hours a day.
Guest:Like there's no band that replicates the weirdness of Cannes.
Guest:I mean, I would almost argue, weirdly, I would say like the Ramones or in a weird way, just Cannes on set of the wrong speed.
Guest:Like there's something similar about like the purity of their idea that I think is really something.
Guest:But like,
Guest:I don't think there's anything like that.
Guest:I'm not like Canada at all.
Guest:I would love them.
Guest:And I want to say like, they've influenced me not just through them, but through the bands that they influenced like public image limited in the fall.
Guest:Like I got my can first through the bands that they influenced.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I found the source.
Marc:It seems like they were not afraid to mix up form within records.
Marc:It was clear that they weren't gunning for hits, so they were able to do what they wanted to do.
Guest:But they had hits.
Guest:This is the weird thing as a non-German.
Guest:We think of Cannes as this...
Guest:oh, have you heard about Cannes?
Guest:It's like suicide or something.
Guest:It's like underground, underground.
Guest:The modern lovers, before everyone knew what they were, Cannes had hits in Germany.
Guest:They had big hits.
Guest:They were on TV and shit.
Guest:They charted.
Guest:There was a moment where they're playing the song I Want More on a sitcom, where they're the band at the beach party playing a song.
Guest:It's...
Guest:There's nothing quite like it.
Guest:It's the strangest thing.
Marc:So how did you, from high school, because I know you had a band before LCD.
Guest:I had a bunch of bands.
Marc:But what...
Marc:How did you arrive at, like, how did you decide, like, this sucks and I'm going to do this other thing?
Marc:I mean, with each band.
Marc:I mean, you were kind of gunning for, like, pretty straightforward alt-rock for a while, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I wanted friends.
Guest:I mean, like, early on, I wanted to make music.
Guest:I just wanted to make music.
Guest:I just wanted to get out of my town, make music.
Guest:Maybe I'll meet other people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:making music that would be like me because i had bands as a kid that's what i'm saying the beginning like i found these cassettes and i found this cassette from like 82 yeah 12 playing with my two friends paul and dale and we were like playing this song we wrote and you can hear them all laughing and having fun and you can hear them being like oh that was cool and you can hear me pretending to be calm pretending to be like yeah that was fun you guys let's do it again but let's all come in together like like i
Guest:I'm not fun.
Guest:They were like, oh, this is great.
Guest:We're in a band, too.
Guest:Maybe I'm going to be on the track team, and maybe we'll go to a party.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be in this band.
Guest:We're going to be in this band.
Guest:We're going to be a really good band.
Guest:Let's work on the band.
Guest:Can we have a band meeting?
Guest:And I was just ruining it for everybody.
Guest:So when I got to New York, I moved to New York when I was 19 in 89.
Guest:I was like, oh, amazing.
Guest:I'm in New York.
Guest:I'm going to meet all these people.
Guest:And the same shit.
Guest:Uh, like I just was no fun and I wasn't getting, I wasn't easy.
Guest:I just, I'm not easy.
Guest:I'm not easy.
Guest:I'm not like at ease in a social situation.
Marc:But, but, but knowing that is there, is there some corrective in your brain?
Marc:Do you, do you, uh, do you act as if now do you want to change that?
Marc:It seems like I know you keep saying that, but you just accept it.
Guest:I've changed.
Guest:I mean, I'm still naturally, I'm still the person I was.
Guest:But a lot of things have changed in my life that a lot of experiences, I've had different experiences that have changed me.
Guest:Even though the raw materials are the same, I've had some experiences that changed me.
Marc:You can identify them?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, one was just like, I went to therapy a lot.
Guest:And I gave up.
Guest:I didn't mean give up.
Guest:I gave up control.
Guest:I was a very controlled person.
Guest:I still am.
Guest:But I was like, I've tried to figure out everything on my own.
Marc:Where did that come from?
Marc:Was there chaos in the house growing up?
Marc:I mean, no.
Guest:I had a very, like, in a certain way, I had an incredibly stable family.
Guest:I remember thinking one time that...
Guest:If I threw this... I remember looking in my living room and being like, if I threw this chair through the window of my living room out into the front lawn... Yeah.
Guest:My father would simply...
Guest:make me pay for the repairs to the chair and the glass.
Guest:Like I would just, he would just get it fixed tomorrow.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then there'd be a bill and I would pay it off with some interest if it took me a while.
Guest:And then there'd be like, that's, that's the thing.
Guest:That was the, the punishment was I would just take responsibility for it.
Guest:I would never, they would never hit me.
Guest:He would never like throw me out of the house or it was a very like, it wasn't a very hot blooded environment.
Marc:Well, they've been through four kids by the time you came.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, he forgot my name most of the time.
Guest:But in the midst of that, when I was 10, my mother was given five weeks to live with lung cancer.
Guest:But she survived.
Guest:But the treatment wound up paralyzing her.
Guest:She was in a hospital for a year and a half, like a rehab hospital.
Guest:In the middle of this time, everything turned upside down.
Guest:And I never, because you only know your life,
Guest:i never felt traumatized i never felt like this would have any effect on me yeah i was always like no i'm fine like my mom's still like totally bossing me around and like she's just in a wheelchair now you know like i took it as nothing happened yeah and as and even in therapy i never really like thought that much happened and it's only like as i've gotten much older and i'm a parent i'm like oh man like i can trace so much shit
Guest:back to like everything being one way and then everything being being turned around right upside down and yeah uh you know and i think it it it a couple of things like that a couple things like that my childhood had some some much bigger impacts i also like i was fearless as a kid like i would any dare you gave me i would i would do anything dangerous anything but you weren't the kid that ate the weird things were you
Guest:I might.
Guest:I'm not so much the gross-out kid, but I was the kid who was like – they'd be like, if you challenged me, like you called me a wimp or you called me like I'm scared or whatever, I would fight anybody.
Guest:I would jump my bike over anything.
Guest:I would take on any kind of physical challenge.
Guest:And I got –
Guest:And when I was talking to my wife, I'm like, oh, our son's kind of cautious.
Guest:And I was like, I'm really cautious.
Guest:He probably got that from me.
Guest:I'm super cautious.
Guest:And she's like, what are you talking about?
Guest:You told me these stories about this, this, this, and then you broke your arm and then you split your face open and all this other stuff.
Guest:And I was like, oh, yeah.
Guest:I was like, well, I guess I used to not be scared.
Guest:And she's like, clearly those things made you...
Guest:cautious like yeah philly you got gravely injured repeatedly as a child like i broke my arm in like 16 places in a bike thing got my cast off and that day hit my face on a diving board split it open my mouth open had stitches in my face like i jumped off then got that fixed then jumped off a chimney and broke like destroyed all the tendons of my ankle in a bush all before i'm like 12.
Guest:And then after that, I became very cautious.
Guest:But I also was so unselfaware that I never, until this year, did I ever realize that like, oh, there was a moment when I was fearless and there's now I'm cautious in the middle where a whole bunch of traumas that like in my lizard brain learned to be like, don't jump off that.
Marc:Stay away from the edge of that.
Marc:Well, if you think about...
Marc:My thing is, like, I look back and I'm just amazed at the trauma of how much I fucking embarrassed myself.
Marc:You know, like, that's the thing that just kills me.
Marc:Like, lately I've been doing that, just sort of like, how the hell did I deal with all that shit?
Marc:Trying to be what I wanted to be, taking all those chances and making a complete fucking fool out of myself.
Marc:You know, it hurts my heart to think about what I put myself through.
Marc:And I I don't.
Marc:Well, how do you how do you reckon with the trauma that you went through?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I mean, I never went to I never went to therapy for trauma.
Guest:I literally do not feel in myself traumatized in any way.
Guest:Like, I don't feel like anything bad's really happened to me.
Guest:Like, I'm a pretty optimistic person in a weird way.
Guest:And like.
Marc:So what did you what was the self-awareness you were lacking?
Guest:I went to therapy because I was shitty at my life.
Guest:Because obviously some stuff was controlling me that was out of my periphery.
Guest:Like it was out of my view.
Guest:And I wasn't aware.
Guest:And I never believed that because I felt totally in control.
Guest:And I felt like, no, no, no.
Guest:I see what's going on.
Guest:I understand myself.
Guest:I always had a much... And it's true.
Guest:I did have a much more...
Guest:detailed and nuanced view of situations than my peers like other kids would just be behaving in these weird ways and i'm like no you're being mean to this kid now because you're an athlete and he seems nerdy but last year you guys were best friends and you're now denying that because it looks makes you look cool in front of your friends and can we not just all talk about that and of course you want to talk about fart in the room and not having any friends behave like that through your you know teenage years right um you know because i always just be like let's just talk about what's really going on socially and then people
Guest:don't really, that's not what anybody wants to do.
Marc:They don't want the honesty.
Marc:No.
Marc:So when did you, like, how did you arrive, like with all these fits and starts around, you know, band and music, I mean, it seems like there's a big difference between playing guitar
Marc:in a alt rock band and building what you built with LCD.
Marc:I mean, what was the shift?
Marc:It seems like maybe DJing was what blew your brain open.
Guest:Well, I think there's two.
Guest:One is like, I played music, I learned how to do everything myself as a kid.
Guest:So I had like a certain base of knowledge and then I moved to New York.
Guest:But I had failed, I had made this record when I was 17, it was a disaster.
Marc:The one with the guy, the Pyramid guy?
Guest:Yeah, Pyramid of Sound, Tom Zepp, Pyramid of Sound.
Guest:So I failed miserably with that.
Marc:And it hurt, but it didn't hurt too much.
Marc:And who were your bands at this time?
Marc:What were you listening to?
Guest:Oh, Cure, Smiths, Sisters of Mercy, all the 480 stuff, The Fall, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Chameleons.
Marc:So you had a tone.
Marc:There was a tone happening.
Guest:Yeah, like all grumpy, grumpy.
Guest:I had the sound of lonely suburbia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I don't know.
Guest:That was what I was making.
Guest:And it was a flop.
Guest:And so I moved to New York and everything changed.
Guest:And it became like indie rock happened.
Guest:And I decided I didn't want to be the guitar player, singer of a band anymore.
Guest:And I became a drummer.
Guest:I felt like that was more workmanly.
Guest:I was going to be like, there was some dignity.
Guest:It was like the dignity of labor.
Guest:Like I thought being a drummer was like being a plumber.
Guest:Like I was just going to be like, I'm going to go out and just work.
Guest:You write songs.
Guest:I'm just going to drum.
Guest:Just don't worry about me, man.
Guest:Like I got this.
Guest:And so I was a drummer for 10 years.
Guest:But of course, turned into a recording engineer, built studios, tried to control the band from the drums, made everybody miserable.
Guest:10 years?
Guest:Well, from 92 to 97, I was a drummer in some bands, like five years.
Guest:What bands?
Guest:I was in a band called Pony and a band called Speed King.
Marc:Those who were drumming?
Marc:You weren't singing or anything?
Marc:You were just drumming?
Guest:I sang a little bit, but mostly I was a drummer.
Marc:And so when did that break your spirit?
Guest:Well-
Guest:I was in a band.
Guest:I got in a band because I met a friend at college who was very smart, and she was a good writer, and we were in writing school together, and she wanted to learn bass, and I was teaching her bass, and I became the drummer.
Guest:And then we became boyfriend and girlfriend, and then I did the brilliant thing of like, hey, let's be in a band together.
Guest:It's the worst fucking idea you could possibly have.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Especially if you're a control freak.
Guest:Oh, we had this...
Guest:and she was aggressive and I was passive aggressive and you know and so you know I was the kind of guy who would just like quietly try to change everything without you seeing and she was the kind of person that like always picked a fight at a restaurant so it's like it was a disaster like you couldn't go to a restaurant without like some problem that needed to get talked about with this waiter and you were the guy sitting there after she stormed off yelling I'm just like you know I'm like a guy who freezes and hopes no one can see him when something happens yeah
Guest:I was like 6'1", 210 pounds of terror, of terrified.
Guest:She was like 5'0", 100, nothing of pure anger.
Guest:And it was just like, yeah, it didn't work.
Marc:Sounded exciting.
Guest:So I was stuck in this band because we lived together and we were in a band and we hated each other, but we were in a relationship.
Guest:And you were studying writing?
Guest:Yeah, I went to college for fiction writing.
Guest:Where at?
Guest:I was at NYU.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:I mean, that's what I was going to be.
Guest:I was done with music.
Guest:I was going to be a writer.
Guest:Okay, so what happens after the- That's when I meet Lipsight.
Guest:That's when I meet Sam.
Guest:It's like those early, like 1990, 1991.
Marc:Were it readings and whatnot?
Guest:Through rock and roll, through Dung Beetle, his band Dung Beetle.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The Dung Beetle time.
Guest:To me, Dung Beetle's still one of my favorite bands of all time.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They have as much influence on me as anything.
Marc:Yeah, hold on one sec.
Marc:Maybe this guy will pass.
Marc:Is someone driving by?
Marc:No, I just never know when these fucking gardeners are going to come.
Marc:And then all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a conversation.
Guest:Oh, you're in Los Angeles.
Marc:Yes, it's the leaf blower event.
Guest:I thought that was a big drum drop.
Marc:Every day, dude.
Marc:You'd be surprised.
Marc:I'm very sensitive.
Marc:There's very few minutes in any day where you don't hear a fucking leaf blower here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's the land of leaf blowers.
Marc:I know that's the joke and everyone knows that, but if you focus on it, you could lose your mind.
Marc:You get to a point where I do where I'm like, can't we just make it only legal on one day?
Marc:You know?
Guest:That's a really, that's the most New Yorker moved to LA concept.
Guest:Like still mad, but about stuff that like you're starting to lose what's ridiculous and what's not.
Guest:Like by being there long enough, you'll just be like eventually like, I formed a group.
Marc:We're going to stop.
Marc:Stop the leaf blowers.
Marc:Well, it's just like garbage day in New York.
Marc:I mean, it's like, what the fuck?
Guest:Well, it's always garbage day.
Guest:exactly same thing man that's what i'm saying where are you right now i'm in brooklyn this is my studio in brooklyn and you've been there forever no i mean i'm a man i was a manhattan guy for a long time but i've been in brook i've been in brooklyn now for a long time so dung beetle you love that band what was great about dung beetle
Guest:I met Sam at a late night party where we were doing drugs and hanging out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And talking about books and having this really incredibly intelligent conversation.
Guest:Like, I was like, Sam was a very sensitive person.
Guest:He was very smart.
Guest:It was the real deal, like, talking to him.
Guest:Talking to the real deal.
Guest:And I was like, I found this friend.
Guest:You know, I feel really connected to this guy.
Guest:This is awesome.
Guest:And he's like, my band's playing tomorrow night.
Guest:You come.
Guest:So I went and saw them.
Guest:It's a spiral.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Down the basement of the spiral on Houston Street.
Yeah.
Guest:I walked in and they're doing their dung beetle thing where they're confrontational and he's acting like a crazy person, the whole band.
Guest:And I'm sitting there with my arms folded and smiling.
Guest:I'm like, oh, man, this is awesome.
Guest:Go, Sam, man.
Guest:These fucking dummies.
Guest:They don't know what's hit them, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm smiling.
Guest:And he looked at me and I kind of smiled at him like, hey, man, it's me.
Guest:And he just got this enraged face.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:like like like like you smiled at a chimp or something yeah and just started pushing people out of the way grabbed me by the face while singing and pushed me out the door till i landed on my back outside the club on the floor of the basement and it was love at first sight man i was like i was like i was so i was like
Guest:thank you for not accepting my bid for connection.
Guest:Like, thank you for making sure that I know fucking that I'm on the other side of this wall.
Guest:I'm not inside the fourth wall here.
Guest:This is like, there was a commitment and I used to call them the, in indie rock days in the nineties, everyone was like super like,
Guest:faux humble and like, sorry man, I got a tune, sorry.
Guest:There's all this apologizing nonsense, anti-rock star, fake humility.
Guest:And...
Guest:And everyone was very comfortable in that.
Guest:They all felt really comfortable.
Guest:They all felt like they were all underdogs, except they were all the coolest people in that room.
Guest:So you're underdog to what?
Guest:Like some fantasy oppressor of hair metal bands or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and um who by the way we're all much more underdog than these indie rock kids you know yeah right class wise upbringing and all other things but like i just consider them like to be like the drunk uncle in the living room of that indie rock scene like they were just a bummer like everyone's like having a good time drinking and then one uncle's like oh you go to college you're a college boy now
Guest:And you're like, okay, it's ruining it for everybody.
Guest:And I loved that it was, because it was always ruined for me.
Guest:I was always uncomfortable.
Guest:And I always felt uncomfortable around groups of people who felt comfortable.
Guest:And going to see Dungbiel made me feel that sense of like, no, nobody's comfortable here.
Guest:I'm equal.
Guest:I've got my feet on the ground.
Guest:And I loved it.
Guest:I loved everything about that band.
Guest:It was a total commitment.
Guest:I went and saw Sam.
Guest:They did a show at Knitting Factory.
Guest:I used to run sound for them.
Guest:And it was a sparsely attended show where both of Sam's parents showed up who had been separated.
Guest:And I don't know if he engineered them both being there at the same time, but they're in the middle of this dirge where it's like...
Guest:like if if you could exponentialize the late late mid late stooges it was like the stooges to the stooges power yeah just like bad ideas bad vibes there's dirge sam's lying on his back on the floor of the not the stage but the floor between his parents with his microphone in his mouth reaching out with his hands to his dad his mom's gonna fuck
Guest:her coat folded over her arms his dad's got his hands his pockets they're on opposite sides of the stage he's lying down between them reaching out with his arms like rolling around the floor the mic is hands going mom dad why
Guest:Like, while the band was like... And I'm like, and to whom?
Guest:Like, there's 14 people there at the old knitting factory.
Guest:And I was just like, this is the greatest performance art.
Guest:Like, this is like... It was like between...
Guest:Like, yeah, it was between the Stooges and Andy Kaufman in a way that was just so beautiful and magical.
Guest:And I felt like I was witnessing greatness.
Guest:And I still to this day, not everything great gets its time.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like this is something that was greater than other things that were happening at the time.
Guest:And it just didn't get its time.
Marc:It didn't get its day in the sun.
Marc:That's so wild, man.
Marc:Because I met Sam much later.
Marc:I met Sam when he had already published that first novel, We Became Friends.
Marc:But he's become one of my closest friends over time.
Marc:But wow, I have no sense of that, Sam.
Marc:So it's really nice to hear.
Guest:But that Sam, what's cool is the Sam that's the writer and the thoughtful friend and the great sense of humor and quiet.
Guest:You could be at a party with Sam and if someone's a type A blabbermouth, they'll never clock how smart and interesting Sam is.
Guest:Because he can just exist under that margin.
Guest:Like, being in that little margin is what I find really fun.
Guest:The two of us would just sit there and murmur at each other.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But his fearlessness as a performer was unparalleled.
Guest:It was just the greatest thing.
Marc:It was such an inspiration.
Marc:That's so funny.
Marc:That's so great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because, like, he gets a little nervous now when he has to, you know... I think he got nervous then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's not a lack of nerves.
Guest:I guess fearlessness is a bad thing.
Guest:It's like, you know...
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Strength to overcome the fear.
Marc:Just throwing yourself into it.
Marc:Like, you know, you put yourself in the position.
Marc:It's like, you know, fight or flight.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So, sorry.
Guest:You asked me a million years ago.
Guest:I'm a tangential person.
Marc:No, it was just sort of the transition.
Marc:You're kind of discussing what was going on and what, you know, led you to, you know, what became LCD.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, after all that, and I kind of went to therapy a lot to try and change my life, and I broke up with my girlfriend, and I kind of stopped being in that band.
Guest:And I built a new studio because I had been storing gear for this guy, and I had to give it back because I lost my studio.
Guest:I got kicked out.
Guest:And then he said he had a place where he was like, I want to design a studio.
Guest:And I was like, well, I can help you design it.
Guest:We'll make a studio.
Guest:So I had a nice studio.
Guest:um and you had learned that you just taught yourself how to do all this stuff i learned from i learned i taught myself and i learned a lot from bob west and steve albini who were like really generous with like design stuff albini's great yeah super i mean he gave me a ton of information when i first built the studio in 92.
Guest:um without knowing me just like set faxed me drawings of walls construct structures yeah but i met a guy tim goldsworthy who is uh was in this this project uncle and moax records in the uk and he was coming with this guy david holmes to make a record in my studio not through my connections i did not have so this is like you were you were going to be a writer but you were also this engineer guy
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And I know at this point I had stopped being a writer, you know, I write on my own, but like throughout the band, I went to college for writing and my fourth year I dropped out because I was in this stupid band with my girlfriend and then that became my life again.
Yeah.
Guest:she had a knit she wound up having a knitting store she's a very she was big in the knit world knit community and I don't know what happened to her I really don't did the anger go away or did she take it out on the knitting I mean I don't I mean she was cool as shit and like her anger was like part of her her passion and part of her also part of her like strength like I think you know
Guest:If you're a tiny person, you better be ready to swing.
Guest:And so I had this luxury of being just a big person.
Guest:If I raised my voice, everyone took it more seriously.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:Last time I saw her, she was still mad.
Guest:But it's been many, many years.
Guest:It's been many, many years since we've spoken.
Marc:All right, so you gave up writing.
Marc:You dropped out of college.
Marc:You're engineering.
Guest:I'm engineering.
Guest:I'm on tour as a touring sound man.
Guest:I'm in this shitty band's drumming.
Guest:And then at the end of that, in the late 90s, I get my life together.
Guest:I build a new studio.
Guest:And in comes this guy, Tim Goldsworthy, with David Holmes.
Guest:And he's cool.
Guest:And he's the coolest person I've ever met.
Guest:He's in magazines is cool.
Guest:His label's cool.
Guest:He has cool trainers.
Guest:you know what i mean and like you know i i don't i'm baffled by it but we start working together on this record and then we stick together and that's what that that's the crux of dfa was tim and i making producing together and making music together right um but it wasn't the label yet uh uh but that was it that turned around that gave me confidence because i was like here i am working with this guy who's like
Guest:Pretty cool.
Guest:And we can talk about music.
Guest:And I'm not beneath him.
Guest:It's just this weird.
Guest:I always felt like beneath everybody and sort of outside.
Guest:And it gave me the confidence.
Guest:And then my parents died in 2001.
Guest:And that kind of turned everything, in a weird way, that unleashed me.
Marc:At the same time?
Guest:Within five months of each other.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:It was, uh, it was, it was 2000.
Guest:It was like my mom died.
Guest:My dad died in the nine 11.
Guest:And after that, I was like, you know what?
Guest:Fucking I'm, I'm going to die and I'm going to die scared and having not done anything.
Guest:So that's, that's the beginning of LCD really.
Yeah.
Guest:and and the idea of lcd was just you know what was the personal manifesto of it just to do shit that you wanted to listen to i mean like yeah i mean just to do shit that i wanted to listen to we were having parties i had done also i had done ecstasy and for a tightly controlled person who the kind of drugs i did were like really inward um
Guest:You know, I never got blackout.
Guest:I would like I tried to control, control, control, control, control.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Ecstasy was this really external thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The first instance of that changed me forever.
Guest:Like it really changed my life.
Marc:It feels like, you know, when I listen to it, like the type of when you are making dance music, it feels like ecstasy dance music.
Guest:Well, I did ecstasy and I suddenly realized I learned a lot about myself.
Guest:I was like, oh, I like having fun.
Guest:I like people.
Guest:I like dancing.
Guest:What stops me from doing all of those things is all image maintenance.
Guest:It's all like, oh, I don't want to look stupid.
Guest:I don't want to look lame.
Guest:I don't want someone to, you know.
Guest:And once I was freed of that, I was like, oh, I'm somebody else.
Guest:Now I'm going to come down off this.
Guest:Also, it wasn't the drug.
Guest:The drug just got rid of some...
Guest:stops and what it exposed was something that I felt was very genuine rather than the drug made me a certain way.
Marc:No, right.
Marc:You know, it sort of peeled away defenses and opened your heart a bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it opened it up in a way that was like, oh, this is totally me.
Guest:And when I came off the drug, I did it a lot because I loved it, but I didn't need it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like once I did it once, I was like, oh, I don't need this drug.
Guest:This is totally just, it gave me the, it's like sort of like when you have an experience, when you're afraid, you're so afraid of the dark, you're so afraid of the dark, you're so afraid of the dark.
Guest:Then you go in the dark and nothing happens.
Guest:You're like, oh, the dark's not that bad.
Guest:Like I was so afraid of embarrassing myself that I went and did this drug and it wasn't embarrassing.
Guest:And I was like, huh.
Guest:Maybe I don't need to be afraid of myself.
Marc:That's what I was telling you earlier.
Marc:The embarrassing trauma is like so fucking weighty, man.
Guest:I still think about shit I did as a teenager and I'm like, oh, I get like waves of horror.
Marc:You don't consider that trauma?
Guest:Yeah, it's trauma, but like, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:OK, it's not a brain injury, but still, if it happens enough, you know.
Marc:But no, but that's interesting because it seems like, you know, once you you kind of land in the groove of the band that, you know, you've got this, you know, kind of.
Marc:almost sarcastic disposition around exactly those fears, you know?
Marc:That you were able to characterize the ridiculousness of these fears that were holding you hostage through some of these songs.
Guest:Well, I mean, also, like, yeah, and I, because I love, like,
Guest:When I became friends with Nancy from the band, one of the things we became friends about was we love human weakness.
Guest:I have a sense of honor with myself, but other than that, I don't expect myself to be like...
Guest:Great.
Guest:Like the shit shittiness of human beings is like something I don't judge particularly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's so constant.
Marc:Why?
Marc:You exhaust yourself.
Guest:Well, no, but there's types of shittiness.
Guest:There's like, there's like gnarly, gnarly, hurtful shittiness.
Guest:And then there's like, we, one of the things we first connected on was like, if you sleep with someone simply because it's just too awkward and weird to leave or
Guest:Like if you just wind up like having like you sleep with somebody literally because you're just like, I don't want to go home.
Guest:This is just weird.
Guest:It's just going to be awkward if I get up and go.
Guest:And like that's a weak thing to do.
Guest:But I kind of I really empathize with that type of weakness.
Guest:Like that to me is the type of weakness that I'm just like, yeah, you're fucking human.
Guest:It's like.
Guest:Like the way it's the reason people laugh at comedians who are parents who are just like, my kids, they're terrible.
Guest:You're like, yeah, that's a terrible thing.
Guest:But I totally can empathize with that human weakness that you have.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, so I've got no I've got no beef with with.
Guest:with humans being a bummer and so like i can i can make music about that stuff and be pretty harsh about it but it's me and i'm not like i don't feel like it's like i love people who are terrible and who are broken i don't like i'm not like some apollonian ideal of like what human beings should be and you know i don't have who is yeah
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, well, that's all the best part of it.
Guest:I also don't want to know those fucking people.
Guest:Like, do we want, who, what, what do you have in common with somebody who's like perfect like that?
Marc:I don't know anybody and it's usually a lie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it's like, yeah.
Marc:Anytime you see it, you're like, uh, there's something bad in there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You eat fucking people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like if you're perfect, you definitely eat people.
Marc:It's got to come out somehow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're feeding somehow in not a good way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, because I think that's the funny part of some of the songs is that there's a sensitivity of it.
Marc:That you're not just mocking it like a bully.
Marc:You obviously are living it somehow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:So, but after this whole arc, I mean, in getting like, how do you respond to people who are sort of like, well, because I talked to Sharpling yesterday and I told him I was going to interview you and we were talking and he loves you.
Marc:He loves the band.
Marc:He's a good dude.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:Um, yeah, these are, these are my two good friends are Sharpling and Sam really and Jerry Stahl.
Marc:They're all, you know, we were, we're sensitive a lot.
Um,
Marc:But we were talking about how... Because I said one of my first reactions was it all seems relatively familiar, a lot of what you're drawing from.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And Sam said, well, he's aware of the pastiche.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So then I had to look up pastiche.
Marc:And then I used it as if I knew the word with Tom.
Marc:And then he said, yeah, he's definitely aware of pastiche.
Marc:And I'm like, OK.
Marc:So how do you answer for that?
Marc:Do you care?
Guest:I never did.
Guest:I never, never did.
Guest:I remember just getting these arguments with people.
Guest:I remember reading The Anxiety of Influence by Harold Bloom when I was in college.
Guest:And having these arguments with all these indie rock bands who were just saying, like, oh, I don't listen to, you know, I'm like, well, you sound like Slint.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they'd be like, no, no, I just listen.
Guest:I'm like, OK, so you listen to Billie Holiday and Music Concrete and Xenakis, and then you just sound like Slint.
Guest:And that's an accident.
Guest:You just landed miraculously at two guitars, bass, drums, mumbled vocals, and 7-4 time.
Guest:That just happened.
Guest:Lightning struck twice.
Yeah.
Guest:And like, and I was like, why are you pretending you're doing this for yourself out of like Athenian grown, fully grown from your own head with no influence from somebody else for your lone self?
Guest:Like if you don't admit that you're making music partially to communicate with other people, you're doomed to like a grotesque lie of aping.
Guest:And like so long ago, I accepted that like what I'm doing when I'm making music, I make music for myself all the time, every day.
Guest:I write songs every day.
Guest:I play instruments every day.
Guest:I don't record them.
Guest:They're for me.
Guest:They're for me.
Guest:They're for my child.
Guest:They're for my wife.
Guest:They're for my friend.
Guest:They're for whatever's happening in that room.
Guest:They're for my own sanity.
Guest:I'll sit down and just play guitar for my own sanity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is purely music for me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'll sing to machines.
Guest:Machines hum.
Guest:I sing to them always.
Guest:That is music for me.
Guest:It helps me with my mental state.
Guest:It's just part of my like, it's like fucking breathing.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, I sing to the leaf blower sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, you have to.
Guest:You have no choice.
Guest:But when I'm making music, I'm making it for other people and it's a communication device.
Guest:And this language has words in it and sentence structure and phrasing in it.
Guest:And when you sit down and write a pop song, you're already working in this trope.
Guest:Like, and you can use whatever weird synthesizers that no one's ever used before, but somebody built those things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you can, like, you know, so for me, I'm working in a tradition no differently than a jazz musician or no differently than, like, a rapper or, like, a...
Guest:A tribal drummer or a Bulgarian non-vibrato singer.
Guest:I'm part of a tradition.
Guest:That tradition is the canon of what I love in music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't shy away.
Guest:Sometimes it's almost like if you're directing a film...
Guest:Sometimes, as a director, you'll take a shot from a Hitchcock movie in a way and recreate it with your characters as a way of juxtaposing, of bringing that memorialized language back into what you're doing.
Guest:And so sometimes I'll find that a song I'm working on reminds me of a song that I listen to.
Guest:I'm halfway through the song and I'm like, oh shit, this sounds like whatever.
Guest:And rather than run away from it, sometimes I'll be like, well, I'm going to dive into that and see where that takes me.
Guest:And there are songs that I've done that with that have been great successes.
Guest:And there are songs I've done that with that have been failures.
Guest:And that's just part of the game.
Guest:And I don't feel that falsely trying to peel away my influences so that no one can see them is an honest gesture.
Guest:That is a fully manipulative gesture, I feel.
Guest:Like, I'd rather always try to find something new.
Guest:And sometimes I became not as obsessed with something new.
Guest:And there are times when I am obsessed with something new.
Marc:What's interesting, though, is the familiarity is usually... Sometimes it's a melody, but not quite.
Marc:But a lot of times it's just a sound of a guitar.
Marc:A production technique.
Guest:I'm obsessed with it.
Guest:I'll become obsessed with a drum sound of a certain record, and I'll be like, I need to figure out how they did that.
Guest:And that process of figuring out how they did that will lead me down towards...
Guest:making a song well that's the interesting thing is that it's oh the the signature thing that you guys have that despite whatever influences is there it seems to be a rhythmic thing yeah and that's been there and that's part of me i was just playing some of the music i found from the 80s for reyna uh uh reyna russum who was
Guest:in lcd and yeah does her own music um under a bunch of different names is amazing amazing amazing amazing artist and made my favorite song in the last couple years called freaks only and she was saying like oh i can hear like that's all those rhythms are here like it's all here in 1984 like all that all the way that you do your thing is here and i'm like it's just like that's the stuff i can't shake that's like speaking english or something
Marc:Yeah, that's it.
Marc:But that's like it's sort of it's sort of interesting because I like I listen to all the records, you know, some, you know, for me.
Marc:I've listened to them before, but sort of in a row.
Marc:And like, you know, I felt whatever my prejudgment was before kind of melt away because of.
Marc:the movement of each song and each piece and sort of the way there's a fluidity to all of it.
Marc:And it all has to do with the rhythm, which is uniquely yours.
Marc:It's all very fun to listen to.
Guest:I also don't care if it's uniquely mine even.
Guest:I read once, there was a guy who was like, I hate this band because it just reminds me of the Talking Heads too much.
Guest:It just sounds like he's just doing it.
Guest:And I remember feeling like, I was like, okay.
Guest:If what you're shopping for is...
Guest:Either originality or the simulacrum thereof.
Guest:Like, I'm not the store to go to.
Marc:Yeah, but what does that even look like?
Marc:You know, it looks like, you know, that... Early Aphex Twin was pretty genuinely original.
Marc:Well, like, what?
Marc:Trout mask replica, right?
Marc:You want to live in that?
Guest:No, I love Trump.
Guest:I mean, but also like that still was from a lot of traditions.
Guest:They were just traditions people didn't know.
Guest:And we live in a world now where it's a lot harder to hide that stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, I saw a great, I did this weird talk many, many moons ago and also speaking on that day, but not talking with me because, come on, it was Brian Eno.
Guest:And he was saying how he was like, he said something remarkably.
Guest:He's like, it was, it's hard to explain, but it was very easy to be new at that time.
Guest:He was talking about like the early, like ambient stuff.
Guest:He was like, he had gone and seen like cluster and all the German bands and the kraut rock bands.
Guest:And clearly he'd also like, he'd also like, he was like, no one had thought to just go like, I'm going to put these things together and everyone's minds exploded.
Guest:And it was like, at that time, there was still a lot of ground that,
Guest:Like unclaimed.
Guest:And the time we live in now, there's far less unclaimed ground, which I think is normal, you know.
Marc:But yeah, I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:And there's also a lot more accessibility to everything that's always happened.
Marc:And I get that, like, you know, Captain Beefheart was, you know, the entire engine was lifted out of Howling Wolf.
Marc:I mean, I understand all of that.
Guest:But he's also a very singular guy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But like in the Talking Heads thing, like that guy's very derivative.
Marc:There's this soul record where it's a whole rip.
Marc:None of that really matters to me.
Marc:But I think like when people talk about the heads or they talk about or the comparison is really because I've been listening to heads outside before I knew I was going to interview you.
Marc:I've been kind of stuck in the live heads specifically that Stop Making Sense Sing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Well, yeah, because, like, I don't, like, you know, that is, if there's any heads that you're really, you know, sort of influenced by that I can hear in the music on a regular basis, it's the momentum of that band live that really is... There's footage of them in Rome around the Remain in Light tour that I don't know if you've seen with Adrian Blue playing guitar, and it's...
Guest:Pretty world on keyboards.
Guest:It's as good a band as has ever taken a stage.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That era.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And David Byrne's underrated rhythm guitar player.
Marc:Great rhythm guitar player.
Guest:Great rhythm guitar player.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's like it's what he's really good at.
Marc:He's really pretty good lead player, too.
Marc:But but like his rhythm is like that's it's it's where it's at.
Marc:It's always been where it's at.
Guest:yeah it's so cool have you ever worked with the worked with him no i've met him a bunch of times uh like i would say i would say we're friendly yeah um uh and it and i and i feel very comfortable separating the guy that i've been like oh hey let's have hi yeah with this other guy because otherwise i wouldn't be able to have the meal
Marc:But you do collaborate sometimes.
Marc:It seems like a struggle for you, even just from talking to you.
Marc:But it seems like you try to.
Marc:I mean, what was that Bowie thing like?
Marc:That must have been crazy.
Guest:That was brutal.
Guest:I mean, what happened was I made a mix for Bowie.
Guest:I made a remix of a song from the first Secret album, The Next Day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It went really great.
Guest:And everybody was really happy.
Guest:And apparently, he was quite happy.
Guest:And he also came and recorded on the Arcade Fire record that I was helping make.
Guest:And we met then and became friendly and exchanged emails.
Guest:And I remember just being on a trip once and writing him an email and being like, hey, I'm away right now, but...
Guest:One of these days, it would be great to get together, and I would love to make some music with you.
Guest:This is a big thing for me.
Guest:I'm like the guy asking for someone on a date for the first time, working up their courage.
Guest:And he writes back, funny you should say that.
Guest:Please come see me when you're back, and we'll talk.
Guest:And I'm doing backflips.
Guest:I'm losing my mind.
Guest:I'm like, I'm going to make a record with David Bowie.
Guest:And my idea is I'm going to make a record with me and him.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:yeah like i'm gonna be like we don't need anybody else like yeah i can make a record alone you can make it alone like we're done it's just you and me just come to my studio let's make a record let's just make a couple songs if nobody hears it doesn't matter yeah but he's already underway of making demos and working on stuff um and he played me music and i was like do you feel like you can add something i'm like i definitely feel like i can add something
Guest:So the time comes, you know, I've signed all the NDAs.
Marc:Which album is it?
Guest:Blackstar.
Guest:Oh, it's the last one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I go to work on Blackstar and I come in and I meet the band, all the players in the band, love them.
Marc:It's an insane band, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're so nice.
Guest:Like all of them are so like odd to be there and sweet and talented and we're joking and it's like a really great rapport and
Guest:And they're really like, honestly, I'm like, is this OK?
Guest:Is what we're doing right?
Guest:They're pretty, David would be pretty like, great take.
Guest:And they're like, I just made this up.
Guest:Is this OK?
Guest:And when I walk in, I see David sitting in the chair.
Guest:He's like, hello.
Guest:And the rest of the band are in the room playing.
Guest:I'm like, OK, there's David.
Guest:He's the songwriter.
Guest:It's David.
Guest:David is the artist.
Guest:I'm like, there's the band.
Guest:They're all playing their instruments.
Guest:There's the drummer.
Guest:It's on the drums, covered, bass player, playing bass, check.
Guest:Keyboard players playing keyboards.
Guest:This is a saxophone player playing saxophone.
Guest:It's like all those positions are totally filled.
Guest:I look over at the console.
Guest:There's Tony Visconti.
Guest:Tony Visconti is sitting at the console.
Guest:That position is covered.
Guest:Great.
Guest:And he's got an engineer and a computer op.
Guest:Those positions are covered.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:uh it's like walking into a cockpit and all the chairs are full and you're like um i guess i'll go sit in the yeah back like so i just didn't know what i was supposed to do and i was like struggling to find my way in to this already moving machine and uh
Guest:um and tony who i got along with great like it wasn't like there was like hey what do you want to do it was like he's like i'm just working you know and these are like heroes years right yeah totally yeah totally i'm like oh well excuse me while i insert myself in the bowie visconti yeah you know it's like hey guys you know i don't know maybe have you considered what this fucking idiot thinks yeah yeah the triangle of sound anybody yeah yeah maybe you've heard my songs no doesn't you have and it doesn't matter cool all right i'll just go back out into the coffee room
Guest:But so it started dawning on me that maybe what my job was, I was like, what is my job?
Guest:Eno.
Guest:Maybe I'm expected to be the disturber of the process.
Guest:Because the remix I did was so disturbing.
Guest:It was a completely take this thing and turn it upside down and reverse it and put it out this way.
Guest:But that's not what I do with people.
Guest:I've only met tangentially.
Guest:I don't know him at all.
Guest:But he definitely seems to have a kind of confidence that they were not handing out when I was born in 1970.
Guest:He's just like...
Guest:you know, walk into a room and be like, I've got a great idea.
Guest:Here it is.
Guest:Let's all do my idea.
Guest:I'm like, I'm going to wait till everybody leaves.
Guest:I'm going to try it to make sure it's okay.
Guest:And then I'll work on it alone.
Guest:And then if it's okay, I'll maybe let them hear it.
Guest:And if somebody says like, I don't want to do that, I'll be like, okay, fine.
Guest:And then I'll be really angry and resentful.
Guest:And then I'll go make my own record.
Guest:Um,
Guest:in spite like that's i'm not like so i did some small things and i you know played some percussion and like ran their synthesizer through some stuff and i had like i was having a good time but i eventually said to him i was like look man i i think i need to take these things and bring them to my studio and work on them myself that's the only that's the instrument i play yeah um and it just wasn't a good fit and it broke my heart like i had i had to leave uh like i kind of i kind of talked myself out of a job uh
Marc:Because you're too hard on yourself.
Guest:No, just because I don't have that gene, man.
Guest:Like, you know, it'd be the equivalent of somebody was really good at sampling.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they were like sampling all these great drum beats and you brought them in.
Guest:You're like amazing drums.
Guest:Here's the drum set.
Guest:Can you play?
Guest:And I'm like, that's not what I do at all.
Guest:Like I can't play drums.
Guest:I can make beats that you hear and you think there's drums there, but I can't do the thing you think happens to make it happen.
Guest:Like I can turn things inside out and turn them upside down, but I can't do them in at war with people.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, in a room.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I just can't do it that way.
Marc:So it's a control thing.
Guest:No, it's it's more.
Guest:I don't like bumming people out.
Guest:I really am sensitive to bumming people out.
Guest:And I'm also incapable of compromise on some level that I can't control.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I just shut down.
Guest:I need to do it my way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and I simultaneously need to do it my way.
Guest:And I can't say what I need.
Guest:So ergo alone.
Marc:Did you know he was sick?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:But we didn't talk a lot about it.
Guest:But yeah, you know, that was part of what I wasn't allowed to talk about.
Guest:Oh, so sad.
Guest:I mean, it is so sad.
Guest:We all go.
Guest:I mean, I don't know a lot of artists.
Guest:He went too young.
Guest:But I don't know a lot of artists who get to make a kind of perfect swan song record and die and be with their family.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's interesting because I was trying to think about that.
Marc:This generation, because you're a little younger than me, but like you said, it doesn't matter once you're in your 50s.
Marc:I don't know that I've paid a lot of attention to the last decade or so of Bowie records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, when they die, you're like, oh, it was just nice knowing they were here.
Marc:But it's not like I've been paying that much of attention.
Marc:But usually what happens is when these heroes die, you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe he died.
Marc:But what you're really saying is like, I'm dying.
Marc:I'm dying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, that whole generation, it's like we're all it's like when that started, I was like, oh, they're just rationally dropping like flies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, people who lived hard are hitting an age and, you know, things things happen.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just like they were always there for us.
Marc:So and then the weird thing is, like, they really still are.
Marc:I mean, you know, I can go.
Marc:I listen to shit all the time.
Marc:I mean, what do you listen to when you listen to stuff?
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Guest:My poor son is like, is he alive?
Guest:He's learned to ask that.
Guest:Oh, I like this.
Guest:Is he alive?
Guest:No, he's not.
Marc:Yeah, but we all did that.
Marc:Because I grew up in that sort of crashing wave of the 60s.
Marc:Everyone was dead.
Marc:I remember looking at Janis Joplin's Pearl and my mother telling me that she died of a heroin overdose and I just couldn't put it together.
Marc:But then you'd flip it over and see that band and you're like, oh, there's the heroin.
Marc:These guys are the heroin.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:What do I listen to now?
Guest:You mix it up.
Guest:I listen to a lot of weird music.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I listen to a lot of things with my son.
Guest:He really likes the guitar player John McGeech, who played in, like, Susan the Banshees and Public Image Limited and Magazine.
Guest:Right now he's been on a magazine kick.
Guest:He's six, so...
Guest:I've done my job.
Guest:He plays drums, so we play music together.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:He plays keyboards and drums.
Guest:I mean, yeah, I've been listening to a Jan Hammer group song and a magazine song with him because he heard them and was like, I want them on my playlist.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He has a playlist.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Spotify playlist.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Marc:And what are you guys rehearsing?
Marc:When do you go out?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:We're not rehearsing.
Guest:We don't.
Guest:We're not.
Guest:We're just never an active band.
Marc:Oh, so what's going to happen now?
Marc:Are you going to play some dates?
Marc:Is that the deal?
Guest:We'll figure something out when the time is right.
Guest:Right now, we're on a full hiatus.
Guest:Because of the nature of the band, when we're not touring, we're just back to normal life.
Guest:Completely.
Guest:And if I'm making a record, that's my problem.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But right now, Pat, the drummer's band, Museum of Love, has a record out today or this week.
Guest:So he's going to be playing with his band where he's the singer.
Guest:you know reyna's got her whole label like everyone does other stuff you know al's in london tyler's in berlin uh you know everyone has their own things going on so for us to put it together and get together is like um we just kind of decide to do it is that gonna be is but is that are you planning on that or no
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:I mean, always in theory, you know, planning on something, but like, I don't want to go out without new music and I'm just getting, I just, this studio was being built when the pandemic hit.
Guest:And so I was almost done with it.
Guest:And then suddenly it all had to stop for a year.
Guest:And I had to like, kind of like on FaceTime, finish wiring up my console with the people who were halfway through it.
Marc:Did you get work done during pandemic?
Marc:None, no work.
Guest:All I did was finish this place.
Guest:um fish i fished a lot really i yeah i had a baby at the very beginning of pandemic so like my life has been i also we have a restaurant my wife and i are partners in a restaurant that's that's uh in my neighborhood and uh when the pandemic hit we were just kind of all hands on deck trying to like save jobs and like figure that out were you able to try to
Guest:Yep, we didn't go under, and we survived and took care of people the best we could.
Marc:You kind of were part of, you were at the ground floor of establishing Brooklyn as Cool Brooklyn, weren't you?
Marc:No.
Guest:When I moved to Brooklyn, I felt I was a little late to the party.
Guest:I moved to Brooklyn in 2005.
Guest:Oh, wow, yeah.
Guest:So people were already, like Pat, the drummer in LCD, was living in Brooklyn when I met him in 96th.
Marc:But didn't you guys do almost a residency there?
Marc:Weren't you like... Oh, yeah.
Guest:Brooklyn Steel.
Guest:We played Brooklyn Steel.
Guest:We played 24 gigs or something crazy when we came back on tour.
Guest:But that's just... I'm trying to figure out how to be a band.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't like playing big shows very much.
Guest:I like them once in a while, but I more prefer small shows.
Guest:And not small shows, but Brooklyn Steel's a big venue.
Guest:That's a big venue for when I would go see a show as a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But shows have just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.
Marc:But you've played huge shows.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah i like it as a festival because i because i can when we play it as a festival yeah i can look at the audience and be like they're not here to see us let's go get them oh like i feel like underdoggy like i can feel like they're all here to see whatever else is on so you feel pressure not that i just don't understand it doesn't doesn't compute that they're there to see you yeah it just feels not that this feels like sounds like false modesty let me i don't mean it like that let me explain
Guest:If I go, I don't, I never went as part of a big audience to see a band.
Guest:I don't understand that.
Guest:The biggest shows I ever saw, like that I ever went to go see were like 2000 people.
Guest:Like that was sort of like capping out at my, like I'd go see a band that was like 2000 people.
Guest:Like this is a great show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I went and saw the Jackson's Victory Tour and the Rolling Stones Steel Wheels Tour.
Guest:Those are the only two big shows I've ever gone to see.
Guest:And they weren't for me.
Guest:Somebody had a ticket.
Guest:I went and I felt like it was a football game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it didn't compute to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So when I go play a festival, I understand that there are people that want to go see these bigger things.
Guest:And this is my chance to make a fool of myself.
Guest:It's like being on TV.
Guest:If you're a guest on a talk show, you don't walk out on the talk show and be like, all these people came to the studio audience to see me.
Guest:And millions of people are going to tune in to see me.
Guest:No, they're there to see Conan O'Brien or whatever the hell it is.
Guest:And you're just there to do your dumb thing and there's no pressure on you.
Guest:And if you do whatever weird thing that's you and one kid is like, I like this guy.
Guest:You're like, oh, I've communicated.
Guest:I understand that communication.
Guest:But if you go do the thing and everybody, you're the thing.
Guest:I don't know what it's like to be the audience of that.
Guest:So I find that confusing.
Guest:Not negative, not bad.
Guest:I just don't understand that.
Marc:Yeah, I find now that I'm performing for my audience, even if it's 1,500, 800 people, there's still part of me that's sort of like, what are you doing here?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Wait, but if it's a night with like six comedians, some of which are like really big, you're like, oh, I'm going to go bum them out for 40 minutes.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And a couple of people are going to be like, that's my guy.
Guest:And I'm here for those six people.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that just computes easier.
Marc:Yeah, it's not the pressure.
Marc:And you don't have to wonder how you manifested this room full of weirdos.
Marc:What is it about you?
Guest:But to me, it's not even the pressure.
Guest:It's just, who am I talking to?
Guest:I know how to talk to people who don't want me there.
Guest:That makes all the sense in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We played Coachella between them Crooked Vultures, which is like John Paul Jones from fucking Led Zeppelin, and Jay-Z.
Guest:And we played between them at the main stage of Coachella back in 2000 fucking whatever.
Guest:And I remember being like, this is perfect.
Guest:People don't give a fuck about us.
Guest:People are just stuck on the field because they don't want to lose their spot for Jay-Z.
Guest:And now we can just go after them.
Guest:We can be Dung Beetle now.
Guest:i met these kids i met these guys who later on like they were working with me and i couldn't understand why they were like you know talking i was like what how did you find me they're like well we went to go see jay-z and we wanted to get on the stage inside of the stage and we were on the side of the stage we went on when you were there because we thought we could hold our spots when jay-z came out yeah and we didn't had no interest in you and by the end of the show we really loved it we thought you were a jam band
Guest:when you start when you came out because it was like they were like how can this many like like how can this there's like a band with like eight white people and they're playing this many people and i've never heard of them has to be a jam band like that's there's no other thing it can be yeah yeah and then when we were when we weren't they were like what the fuck is this and i was shit faced and like climbing up and down the monitors and
Guest:And they were just like, they were puzzled as to what this thing was.
Guest:And that to me, I totally understand how to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I also know how to understand how to play for like the size venue that I used to go see shows in.
Guest:Because I'm like, oh, you came to see me the same way I went and saw Echo and the Bunny Man.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I get this.
Guest:I'm going to try and give you the best show I can under those circumstances.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But 20,000 people come to see me.
Guest:I don't understand that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not pressurized.
Guest:I just don't know what to say.
Marc:Yeah, like some of you have been misled somehow.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:Clearly there's a misunderstanding.
Guest:And I don't mean that I don't deserve to have people like me, but there's a lot of you who are misunderstanding exactly what I'm about.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I'm not for this many people.
Marc:Yeah, I get it.
Marc:Yeah, I'm definitely that guy too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was great talking to you, man.
Guest:Likewise.
Marc:Likewise.
Marc:And I'll tell Sam and Tom that I had a great time.
Guest:Yeah, say hi to those guys.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:That's a good duo you've got.
Marc:Yeah, I will, man.
Marc:They're good guys.
Marc:And it was great meeting you, man.
Guest:Enjoy the leap blowing.
Marc:That was James Murphy.
Marc:I go listen to LCD sound system.
Marc:If you don't know his stuff, go to WTF pod.com slash tour to see my dates and ticket availability in, uh, Denver, Salt Lake city, Phoenix.
Marc:I think it's sold out the one night I'm there.
Um,
Marc:St.
Marc:Louis, I think Bloomington will be added soon.
Marc:Yeah, we're doing it.
Marc:We're taking it out there.
Marc:We're hammering it out.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Okay, let's ease into some guitar.
Marc:Tele straight into a vibraverb with the built-in reverb and vibrato.
Guest:Thank you.
Thank you.
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey and La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Thank you.