Tegan And Sara

Photo: Donald Bowers/Getty Images

Interview

Tegan And Sara On The Power Of Music

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The Canadian folk-pop power duo discuss the evolution of their approach to songwriting, their recent shift in instrumentation and their love of Bruce Springsteen
Steve Baltin
Monica Molinaro
Recording Academy
Jun 21, 2016 - 5:15 pm

At the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles on their Love You To Death tour, Tegan and Sara, in their usual charming fashion, shared with the sold-out crowd that they’re often praised, however disconcertingly, for their effortlessly funny stage banter as much as they are for their indie-folk-turned-pop songwriting.

With their magnetic ability to connect with audiences, it’s no wonder Sara and Tegan Quin reveal to us that they are drawn to and take queues from artists like Bruce Springsteen, Sinead O’Connor, and the Smashing Pumpkins; for their honest and relatable storytelling, the deep and long-lasting memories evoked by it, and the emotional bonds they’ve formed with audiences as a result.

Over two-decades into their music career together, Tegan and Sara have squarely set themselves in the pop genre. They’re inspired and confident in their evolution and their less acoustic, more synthesized sound. In our interview with the GRAMMY-nominated sisters, Tegan and Sara give homage to the power of music and explain how it’s empowered them to grow and transform as artists.

Are there people you really look to and admire in terms of their stage banter and performance?
Tegan: Throughout our entire career, we’ve referenced Bruce Springsteen as a career that we’ve definitely modeled ours after. And he was highly influential in early years because we grew up in a Springsteen household, so we grew up not just listening to his records, but specifically Live/1975-85, the live record, and the sound of the crowd cheering, the stories, he was drawing you in, even [as we were] just sitting in the minivan driving from Calgary to Vancouver. And as soon as we started performing, first of all, we were getting booked to do coffee shop gigs where you had to entertain for three hours at a time and we had 10 songs. So, we had to play the same songs three times, but we also still had to fill time and it was this natural … well, Bruce Springsteen talks, we were used to that personal nature, so we just shared our stories in the same way. And I think throughout our career, we’ve used him as a reference in terms of our connection to our audience. Like, Bruce Springsteen fans love him. He’s not a character, he’s not playing a character; he’s being himself. He’s telling his stories, his hardships. And yet, when you listen to him, you’re not really thinking about him or his stories. He’s telling you the story, which is getting you to feel and emote, but what it’s really doing is drawing you in so you can relate your own life and own experiences.

Are there songs that, as fans, you feel that way about? You don’t necessarily get why it’s important to you, but it is.
Tegan: Yeah, this is something we talk about a lot in reference to when you make a record like Heartthrob or Love You To Death. “Are you afraid of alienating early fans, young fans, who’ve been with you since the early days?” And the truth is no, because, inevitably, even if we made a record that sounds exactly like The Con or So Jealous or even earlier works we’re never gonna replace that first time we heard us, we’re never gonna undo those memories and that attachment they have to us, especially the fans that have been with us for over 10 years because they are completely different people, just like we are. And I think that’s what’s kind of magical about music, there is no logical reason for us to have connected to Bruce Springsteen the way we did at seven years old, yet we did and we carried it with us for 25 more years. And the other day when I was playing that live record for my girlfriend, I almost wept with joy sharing it with her for the first time, her getting to hear the swell of the crowd when he starts to play the harmonica at the top of “The River.” The reason why I love that music has got nothing to do with Bruce Springsteen, it’s got to do with being seven or eight years old and being in the minivan with my mom with her new boyfriend, Bruce, who loved Bruce Springsteen and who wanted her to love Bruce Springsteen as much as we did and the drives we did every single summer to Vancouver. And there is no rational reason for it, it’s all sensory and that’s why I would never insult our own audience and say, “No, if you love The Con you’ll probably replace it with Love You To Death.” You were a different person, you’re never gonna be that person again.

That’s so funny, because my sister and I grew up listening to Peter, Paul And Mary, Bonnie Raitt, Alanis Morissette, Fleetwood Mac while driving in our mom’s minivan, and whenever you hear it, you just turn around and make eye contact and you’re that age again. Music is one of the biggest transporters.
Sara: Especially the stuff that happens the first 18 years of your life. I’ll never forget exactly where I was and exactly how I felt when I heard the beginning of “Today,” Smashing Pumpkins. It changed my life, I’d never heard music like that before. It was all consuming after that. That was my favorite band. I wanted everything, I wanted to know everything about that music, and I don’t believe that’s ever going to happen to me again. It doesn’t matter how excited I am to hear a new song or hear a new album, I will never feel the way I felt when I discovered what was going to become my first obsession, not my parents’ music, not what other little kids were listening to, but the first thing I discovered that was gonna be for me. The other day I saw that Billy Corgan is doing the acoustic tour and he brought James [Iha] out on stage in L.A and they played “Mayonnaise,” the two of them together, and I immediately started playing it and I was shocked at how emotional it made me feel to hear Billy and James playing the beginning; that wonderful, beautiful harmony, opening riff, cause suddenly I was 14 again.

Tegan: I did it yesterday when that whole Sinead O’Connor thing was happening and she went missing. Everyone was posting all these old videos of her and there was a video of her performing “Troy” at Pinkpop [music festival] and it was crazy. I fell into a crazy Sinead hole, I watched two hours of videos of her on TV shows and singing these songs acoustically. Even still now it made me think there’s something to be said for just going and performing your big song acoustically ‘cause immediately it’s all about the emotion and the performance and how beautiful that is. Which, not to blatantly turn the talk to the live show and the record, became important to us, to try and make this record less dense and compact and have more freedom for vocals and emotions of these songs. And then when we translated them live to leave room for us to perform them and not be bogged down by, “I gotta play a million instruments.” There’s something so powerful about putting Sara and I right next to each other in front of the stage and just making it about the performance.

That was one of the most notable things seeing your show, because you get really used to the guitar and, of course, the acoustic sound. I was kind of surprised you brought out the guitar at all to be honest.
Tegan: It felt so good, we loved it. I was like, “This is great playing acoustic guitar cause then it’s over.”

Sara: I think also too, when something is really expected of you, at least for me, there’s a tendency to not deliver that, I don’t want it to be predictable. And I don’t play guitar at home, I don’t have guitars laying around, I don’t lay on my couch strumming the guitar. I haven’t written songs on the guitar in the traditional way since maybe The Con. Even with Sainthood I was mostly using my guitar as a keyboard, I was running it through so many effects pedals it’s barely recognizable. Sainthood was the first time I wrote songs completely without the guitar, “Alligator” I never had played a guitar on that song.

Tegan: It’s almost like by only playing guitar on 4 of 16 songs, the guitar became more significant. And by standing closer together, we made a bigger statement. There was a point in our career where Sara and I used to have to switch sides of the stage. So, if you were playing electric guitar, you’d move over to Sara’s side and if you were playing acoustic guitar, you’d be on my side, so we used to switch back and forth. Then in 2003, 2004, we hired Ken, this sound guy, and he watched us in sound check. He’s like, “No, no, no, that’s your side of the stage, that’s your side of the stage. You’ve gotta sing in your own mike, get another guitar.” It was this huge movement. It was this moment where we were like, “We’re our own people, we have our own side of the stage, our own guitars and our own guitar techs.”

(Steve Baltin is a music journalist in Southern California. He is a contributor to Rolling Stone, Billboard, Forbes, and many other publications, host of Hulu’s “Riffing With” series, and music journalism instructor at the GRAMMY Museum's GRAMMY Camp.)

(Monica Molinaro is a freelance music journalist and marketing professional in Los Angeles. She has written for Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter.)

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Interview

KT Tunstall: Songwriting Joy With 'KIN,' Working With James Bay

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The singer details her new album and shares her journey of self-discovery and creative experimentation
Nicole Pajer
Recording Academy
Oct 13, 2016 - 6:07 pm

GRAMMY.com caught up with KT Tunstall to discuss pushing past her musical comfort zone on KIN, teaming up with James Bay on a track called “Two Way,” and what she loves most about writing music for film.

You recently released your fifth studio album, KIN. There was an interesting personal journey that you went on prior to this album coming out. What is the story behind that?
The last record […] was written half before and half after two massive shifts: my dad passed away, and I got divorced.  Life turned upside down. I toured for 18 months, mostly solo and in beautiful seated-theaters, which I had never done before. I was completely drained after that experience. I didn’t feel attracted to making another record. It was the right time to try something different and flex some creative muscles.

I didn’t understand how I’d checked all the boxes to be happy and it hadn’t worked, so I sold everything I owned and moved to Venice Beach, California, and it was one of the best things I ever did. I felt like I had found a place where I could involve myself in just being, not doing. The huge upside of LA, too, was suddenly I was in the direct view of some fantastically interesting and creative people in Hollywood. I delved into writing music for film for about a year, which was great and I absolutely intend to continue doing it.

What did you learn from dabbling in the film-scoring world?
It can be very rewarding to deliver a director the song he needs to augment what he’s shot to the point where it hits home and connects with an audience. […] So to be involved in that process, I find really stimulating and challenging. I can work completely outside of my usual boundaries. I feel like, if it has KT Tunstall on the cover and it’s an album, there’s a certain edge that I don’t want to go across because I’m going to alienate people. I can explore the electronic solo bass project with film. I can really go to town and use more orchestral arrangement chops […] that I very rarely use with my own material.

So how did you go from detouring into the film-scoring world to releasing another full-length album?
Because I was in LA, inevitably I’m driving. I was driving the canyon roads listening to Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young – listening to these songs where they were born – and I started writing these pretty, emotional, muscular, big, pop-rock choruses. My mind and body were screaming at me, “Don’t do it! You need a break,” but my spirit won. I would have been a total fool to not respect the inspiration that was coming. My body decided, “OK. We’re making a record now.” The record company didn’t know I was doing it, and I didn’t have a manager at the time, so I began the record in secret just by circumstance. By the time I went back to London and played the demo to my A&R man, his eyebrows just went through the roof. It was the last thing they were expecting from me: a big pop-rock record. It feels like a complete rebirth.  

Selling 4 million copies of your first record is good and bad. […] I think I had become less vulnerable in my writing. It was a life-changing process to leave the music behind for a minute and find out who I was as a person, away from making records.

Tell us about the creative process behind the album. What did you do differently on this one versus previous releases?
I started tracking the record with Brian Bender at  Motherboard Studios in East LA. I also got my friend Dave Maclean from Django Django – a British band that I absolutely adore, and who were a big reference point for this record. [Dave] came over to help the vibe, and he nudged me in more experimental directions. I got a great new manager in Jeff Castelaz at Cast Management in LA. […] Jeff also manages Tony [Hoffer] and he said, “Why don’t you meet?” I was over the moon because Tony had always been very high up on my list of producers I want to work with. [Beck] is my favorite artist, and Tony had been in Beck’s band, and went on to produce Midnite Vultures and Guero. He has that fantastic dual sensibility of managing to keep something sounding like it can get on the radio, but at the same time really pushing the boundaries of production and instrumentation. He was the perfect partner. It was important to me that there was real joy present in making the record, because that’s what this record is all about.

How did you tackle the songwriting process this time around?
I work well under pressure, so I put that pressure on myself. I booked the studio sessions starting the 11th of January, which was actually the day that David Bowie died. Our first day in the studio was very meaningful, and very sad obviously. We listened to “Life on Mars?” in silence, and vowed to be better at what we did after listening to it.

Over the New Year [holiday], I would get up in the morning, chop wood, sit in front of the fire, and write for 7 to 8 hours a day. I’ve never done that before. It […] really galvanized my belief that going to places specifically to write and retreating to write, for me anyway, is an incredibly valuable thing to do.

You have a duet with James Bay on this album. How did that opportunity come about?
We were both guests on the Jools’ Annual Hootenanny Show, […] and I had read in one of his interviews that he is a fan of mine, which is such a compliment. We got chatting at the rehearsal and he was telling me the gigs of mine that he had been to before he got famous, then he proceeded to completely blow the roof off the place with his performance. It was incredible. We swapped numbers and said bye. A few days later, I was listening to the song “Two Way” – I had a verse and chorus, but I really wanted it to be a duet. I dropped him a line and said, “I know you are busy running the planet right now but do you want to do a song together for a record?” He replied straight back saying, “Yes! I’d love to.” We bounced ideas over email from various hotel rooms, and then he was passing through LA during the recording sessions. It was very low key, just a fabulous day working with a fabulous musician.

You just released a music video for “Maybe it’s a Good Thing.” What’s the goal of making a video in this day and age? Is it still as important as it once was?
It’s very difficult because record companies don’t have the same money that they once did, but they want the same standard of videos. You have to get very creative. For “Evil Eye,” the first release from the EP, I just directed it myself, […] and it got like 350,000 views for next to no money. So for “Maybe it’s a Good Thing,” we did have more of a budget.

In a video now, you either want to be doing something you’ve never done, or something that no one’s thought of yet. There is too much Internet traffic to make something that isn’t going to make people look twice. [‘Maybe it’s a Good Thing”] was about color and performance and energy – something visually stimulating to help you engage with the lyrics.

How do you see yourself as an artist today? Are you finally embracing the fact that you are a pop star?
It was something that I felt very at odds with, to the point where I probably sabotaged how far things got. I look back and I think, “What an idiot that you didn’t trust yourself.” I felt very opposed to that more commercial level of music and touring. I felt like it was going to be hard for me to provide an authentic experience in a place that big. I wasn’t ready for it. I would jump on it now – I’d be like, “OK. We need confetti canons and we need fire and we need lasers!”

I was very resistant to being a boss back then. It felt lonely to be in charge of everything and on my own. Now I’m older and wiser, and I take enormous joy and very deep gratitude, especially as a woman, for being in a position of calling the shots. I feel ready to finally see what the potential is for me as an artist, whether that be pop, alternative, rock… I’m glad to have my feet in different places at different times.

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Billy Duffy

Tibrina Hobson/WireImage

Interview

Billy Duffy Talks 'Hidden City,' Guns N' Roses Tour, Streaming

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The Cult guitarist/songwriter also discusses how he finds new energy in new music and his thoughts on frontman Ian Astbury
Nicole Pajer
Recording Academy
Oct 7, 2016 - 1:50 pm

GRAMMY.com caught up with Billy Duffy to hear about how The Cult is navigating the modern world of digital streaming, and how putting out new music at this stage in his career is like receiving a “blood transfusion.”  

The Cult is currently on the road for a stint of US dates after supporting Guns N’ Roses on their 2016 Not in This Lifetime Tour.

You just got off the road with Guns N’ Roses. How was that tour?
Rock and roll on an industrial level! We’ve done big gigs before, but it was interesting to go back and be a part of that dynamic. It’s a big stage - lots of running around. Mentally, physically, and spiritually you have to get ready for it.

At this point in your career, do you learn anything from watching a big arena band like Guns N’ Roses perform?
Guns N’ Roses rehearsed very hard. That’s one thing I learned: they rehearse a lot. You almost second nature the actual playing so you can work out the performance and get the chemistry on stage. That stuff’s important.

Hidden City is your 10th studio album. What was the inspiration behind it?
I don’t want to paraphrase Ian [Astbury] in terms of lyrical inspiration, but for me it’s the same for every album. I get an itch, and I write a load of music. I need to scratch the itch and get that music out, so I get together with Ian and an album pops out. Fortunately, I’ve got a partner where we manage to get in the same space, come together and make records.

My personal challenge is to make music that doesn’t suck, and I think we achieved that with this record. Our albums are basically the same two guys that wrote them for 30 years, but they are all diverse and it charts a journey and an exploration. We could have made the same album 10 times - we might be guilty of many things, but we’re not guilty of that.

Is it still as exciting at this point in your career to be able to put out new music?
There are bands that go out on tour and just play the hits and never make new music, and then there are bands that make new music. I think that gives you a blood transfusion. It’s important to go through that process.

How has the process of how you and Ian work together to create songs evolved over the years?
Back in the old '80s, you could kind of knock music together. The band is your home. If you’re not on tour, you’re in rehearsals or making a record and material comes up and germinates quickly. You do it in sound checks. You play it live. That’s all dead now because of cell phones and the Internet. Nobody plays new songs live before they have been recorded because they have no value. Plus, the way recording has changed. People can record at home and do their own thing. You don’t have to get the band together, although I find that is healthy. The other thing, to be totally, brutally honest, is when you get older and you’ve been in a band and you’ve made some money, you don’t hang out with each other as much. I don’t care what anybody tells you, the last thing you want to do when you’ve just finished a tour is see the other guys in the band. So it takes time to get together.

Having said all that, every three years Ian and I have ideas and we put them together. I will confess I don’t think I’ve had one new riff idea since we did Hidden City though. It’s a weird thing for me, but it comes when it’s ready.

When it starts happening, I make sure I’ve got something to record it on and then I start the process. I’m not one of these guys that have a home studio; I’ve never been into that technical side of it. I’m more of an experiential guitar player trying to express how I’m feeling through the music and melodies.

You had Chris Chaney play bass on this album. What did he bring to the project?
He just intuitively and seamlessly knew what we wanted to hear.  There was barely a moment where we were like, “Oh don’t play it like that. Play it like that.” 95 percent of the time, he listened, he understood what was required, he executed flawlessly, and he knew where to get the best takeout food in Hollywood. In every situation it was a win! A lot of session players are like that. They have the ability to understand what is required […]

A few years ago, Ian announced that The Cult wasn’t going to do any more studio albums and was going to focus on EPs and digital releases…but then you put out this album trilogy. What was the decision behind that?
I’ll tell you this about Ian Astbury – dear, dear guy I love very much -- when he says something, he really means it at the time. […] When he said it, he meant it.

What he didn’t know was you can’t make money off of selling EPs, because you can’t charge enough for them. So you make an EP, and then you lose money. Six months later, you’ve got a bill. Ian Astbury didn’t like that, and neither did Billy Duffy.

He’s a very forward-thinking guy […], but he’s pragmatic enough to realize that you can reach and sometimes it doesn’t work out.  

You kicked off your latest trilogy in 2007, which Hidden City is a part of, with Born Into This…
With the trilogies, what we were saying is, “Hey! We’ve been together 10 years. We’ve done a million gigs since ‘Fire Woman.’ The band is still good now. Come check us out!” We’ve made three albums, and I think they’ve all gotten better as they’ve gone along.

It certainly energizes Ian that he has the challenge of coming up with new stuff, even though it might not mean anything -- albums don’t mean anything; nobody buys them. Old school fans do, people who are 40 and older do, but young people don’t even want to own music. They just want access to it when they want access to it, so they stream it.

How do you feel about the current streaming frenzy?
Well, now the industry has managed to monetize so that the artist can get paid more than .000007% of a penny. The cycle is a little better. [Most] young people don’t want to really own stuff, but there are a percentage that want a record player and vinyl. You’ve got this juxtaposition. The vast majority […] just want it up in the Universe and to be able to listen whenever they like. Then there is a small percentage who are like, “That’s terrible. How soulless and vapid is that?”

The sound quality is terrible, as we all know, so that’s the next battle […] If anything, I’d be for better quality streaming so people can really listen to the music.

During your 2013 tour, you guys played the whole album Electric. What was behind that decision?
Most bands do [the classics] at 20 years, or 25 years or whatever. Not The Cult. We do them when Ian’s ready. At whatever year Ian is ready to do them, we do them.

Again, it’s like anything else; every band does it now. Maybe in 2009 we went out and it was like, “Wow! They are playing the whole Love album. How cool!” Now bands will go out and play every album in one night. It’s audience driven. If the audience stopped showing up, then it’s no good anymore.

Will you do it again in the future?
I’d like to think we could do it. It would be fun. We’ve certainly got a good lineup of guys, and I certainly enjoy playing with them. I don’t think we’ve ever been better.

What’s the secret to keeping your signature sound while still evolving with the times?
It’s the enthusiasm […] the blood transfusion of doing new music. You’ll do new music, and then the next time around you do a classic album tour where you play the whole album and you play a mixture of stuff afterwards. Do what feels right at the time.

I think it’s the determination of me and Ian, and the willingness to drive forward and keep getting up and keep getting back in the ring and keep swinging. I think that is a factor. Too dumb to quit maybe!

Do you have any solo aspirations?
I have no desire to do a solo record because I pretty much get to do what I want, which is one of the secrets to the thing within The Cult.

It is collaboration, but it’s also pretty open. I think that’s another reason we’ve lasted so long.

That must feel really great, especially at this phase of your career.
Look at Mojo’s review for Hidden City. No band like us gets 4 stars in Mojo. It’s a nice little thing, even though I’ve never made records to get reviews.

Rock bands are sort of put down in the general music media, they generally have a go at rock bands. But for once people got it. It was cool!

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Brandon Boyd

Photo: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

Interview

Brandon Boyd: Incubus Frontman Talks Creativity In Art & Songwriting

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The GRAMMY nominee also dives into his obsessively curious creative process and why invites the presence of fear
Steve Baltin
Monica Molinaro
Recording Academy
Sep 9, 2016 - 1:40 pm

It’s a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles when Brandon Boyd joins us for lunch at the Sunset Marquis Hotel. Boyd is here to talk about his burgeoning art career, but inevitably, as he is in the midst of writing a new Incubus album, the focus turns to songwriting.

During the conversation, the frontman of GRAMMY-nominated rock band Incubus delves into his creative process, from how he deals with writer’s block, to collaborating with the band’s guitarist Mike Einzinger, to the common artistic elements that speak to him at an intersection of music and painting.

You and Mike have spoken about spending a lot of time together recently while writing. Has it been almost a spiritual experience reconnecting in this way?
We’ve written quite a few albums together. I’ve written a couple of albums on my own and they’re always different. When you make a record, it’s definitely like there’s a level of obsession that goes into it. You have to become quite literally obsessed, almost to an unhealthy degree, where you become almost single-minded about these ideas. And I’m super obsessed; like I stay up in the middle of the night and my eyes are closed, but I’m pulling words and phrases out of the ether, cutting and pasting and moving them back and forth. It’s always a spiritual process in a way, not in a religious sense, but it’s like you’re mining your emotional experience and your hopes, dreams, fears and lessons. Everything is fair game, everything. That’s why it’s fun to write with one of my best friends, because we have so much history together.

You guys took a five-year hiatus, and there is something to be said for taking a break. I imagine it’s nice to take these breaks periodically and discover that even as you both change, the core of the friendship is still there.
It very rarely felt, if ever, forced. We have taken, especially over the last ten years, gaps in time in between albums and touring cycles. We’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do something like that. During those time periods we’re not really taking time off, we’re just not being in the band Incubus. So everyone has a chance to stretch creatively, unpack, start a family, do whatever they’re going to do. For Mike and me, we’ve had diverging creative paths, but we’ve both stayed just as busy pursuing our own individual things. But it’s been really cool, I think for both of us, to see where those roads end up going. And they always end up informing the mothership, as I call it, which is our band. 

Have your creative experiences apart, like Mike doing his own thing with Hans Zimmer, contributed to that?
Honestly, all of it has an indelible effect. Every little thing that happens, from our drummer Jose [Pasillas] raising a family, Ben Kenney doing his own side work, even the motorcycle rides the guys go on, everything affects everything, from the most subtle to the most profound. You have to remain a sponge to try and absorb as much as you can. It’s when you stop being obsessively curious that I think the art starts to suffer because the curiosity and inspiration are very comfy bed fellows, they fit very, very well together. So the more obsessively curious we are, the more creative we are. So, for me, that’s meant stirring up my life every few years. Sometimes I’ll feel a sense of stagnation and I’ll throw a bunch of shit away or give a bunch of shit away and drive north for a couple of days for no other reason other than to just let some new stimuli in. And then sometimes it just naturally regulates itself, like you’ll see a film you weren’t expecting to see and it completely melts your worldview and sends you off on a different path. 

It’s interesting you use the word obsessed about writing when you’ve been concentrating so much on the art as well.
The only way that I know how to write a song or paint a picture is to be single-minded about the process, which sounds very Zen. And there is a sort of Zen element to being single-minded and doing one thing exclusively for a period of time, but it’s an area where it’s almost like a safe container for obsession. I let myself get completely obsessed with the song that we’re writing. I’m probably kind of annoying with it. “This part here has to do this, the voice is gonna go here, then there’s this thing over here.” The whole thing is mapped in my mind, so I probably seem like a crazy person. I’m sure the other guys in the band have their own styles of obsession. But we get to be a jolly bunch of obsessive freaks together, and that’s one of the reasons it’s still fun, ‘cause we don’t really dictate to each other how you’re supposed to do you. It’s fun to bring these core ideas Mike and I come up with to such talented musicians and then have them listen to them, critique them, point out what they like, what they don’t like and then put all our heads together at that point and take it through a blender. It turns out usually completely differently than you imagine.

How are your approaches to painting and writing different?
They’re a little different in the sense that I was working on a painting last night and I feel like I can obsess longer over a painting. But lyric writing and making melodies and harmonies and things like that, there’s something that’s a little bit more intense about it emotionally. So it comes in waves, it’s one of those things you can’t force. Art is sort of similar, but you can just sit there and spin lines on paper and push paint around on canvas aimlessly and it’s kind of fun. But if you’re in a vile mood and no words are coming to you and you feel like shit, it’s like, “Fuck this, I’m going for a walk.” In that sense you obsess a little differently. Fortunately, for me, I don’t have vile moods very often. 

Do you ever have to deal with writer’s block?
With writer’s block, I’ve learned it’s inevitable. Go for a walk, go for a surf, ride your bike, go to the farmer’s market, go talk to people, read a book, anything rather than to actually obsess, once again, over the idea that you can’t come up with a good idea. You can force it and it’s probably gonna be terrible. I’d have to go back and listen, but I can point out to you areas, a bridge melody or a bridge lyric, where I was dry and we didn’t have much studio time. The day was almost done so I just put something right there.

Do you listen to music when you paint?
Most of the time, no. Most of the time it’s nothing; silence, door opened, you can hear just the mélange of wherever I am happening. If there’s sound, it’s usually Alan Watts talking to me. But then I was working on a painting last night, and the day before listening to John McLaughlin’s Shakti project. He’s like the craziest guitar player I think I’ve ever heard. It just depends. The sound of nothing while you paint gets really trippy and you really can get lost.

Do you think that’s a sign of really loving what you’re doing?
Yes, and if there is a point, which I don’t think there is, it’s to get lost in that sort of loving exchange. You’re kind of indulging the nothing. You’re saying, “Okay, take me, let’s go on an adventure to who fucking knows where.”

It’s almost brave to let yourself go there and then share it with people.
It’s scary. Usually stagnation comes on the heels of being comfortable and you can get too comfortable, you can get complacent. And you can get fearful that if you uproot anything you’re gonna dig into that comfort. It’s good to be a little bit scared about the outcome. 

Incubus Talk '8,' Songwriting And Skrillex Collaboration

Interview

Zhu Talks 'Generationwhy,' GRAMMY Nomination, Evolving & More

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The GRAMMY-nominated electronic musician talks about building his hybrid sound from the group up and the allure of mystery
THE GRAMMYs
Recording Academy
Aug 8, 2016 - 2:32 pm

Even his most devoted fans might not recognize electronic musician Zhu if they ran into him on the street. And that’s by his own design. Under a veil of anonymity, Zhu emerged as a force in electronic music with his 2014 single, “Faded.” Letting his music speak for itself, he signed with Columbia Records and garnered a GRAMMY nomination, all while remaining a mystery.



Fast forward two years, and Zhu just dropped his debut album, Generationwhy. GRAMMY.com caught up with the Los Angeles-based producer backstage at Lollapalooza 2016 to talk about his approach to live performances, what audiences can expect from a Zhu show, and the allure of mystery.

What was your first introduction to electronic music?
I think the first couple of acts that really brought me into electronic music was Justice, Daft Punk, Deadmau5, back in 2007 and 2008. I think we were able to improvise more with the technology that we had. We didn’t have to go rent out major studios and spend a bunch of money. We could do certain things, you know, D.I.Y. Of course there’s challenges to that as well. But it was the first time I think anyone could, if they tried, make music. And that was a very revolutionary thing for our generation.

Take me through the evolution of your DJ set up. What gear do you use on stage, what software are you running?
There’s one thing about DJing which is being in an environment playing a long set. And then there’s another thing about performing with live instrumentation and vocals and things like that. So, the way that I have it setup is everything is MIDI-synced between my musicians and I and all our external kind of outboard gear. Ideally in the future, I can pretty much resample things out of play and put them in as we go live.

The sonic landscape of a live performance is three to four sounds. You can’t hear that much detail. You have your mids, highs, lows, vocals, so you have to minimize a lot of stuff. For me, it’s just rearranging a lot of music and also taking out a lot of the things that don’t need to be there live. Unlike in the records where you have infinite detail to play with on your headphones or in your monitors, live — you’re only going to hear a few sounds and those sounds got to really count and be impactful.

What’s your approach to song arrangement and how, sonically, do you approach weaving in electronic sound with live instruments?
For me I start with the low end. I think the electronic low end is something that usually you can’t achieve on an acoustic or even sometimes analog kind of techniques. So, that’s what sets it apart and that’s always going to stay fundamentally electronic. Now, the mids and highs — those are the places that you get to play around with. For me, the live instrumentation that sit in that space live — whether it be guitar, sax, keys, vocals, percussive — those can come through. It’s actually more powerful that it’s played live. Sonically, it just sounds better. It’s more full, it’s more dynamic.

Let’s talk about Generationwhy — what went in to making this record?
This album spanned quite a long time. And, usually it’s a luxury I have time, but at the same time I very much admire the situation 10 or 20 years ago, where they had two to three months or four months in a place and they had to finish – they had a deadline.

Sonically, I wanted to find a way to blend kind of psychedelic music into what club culture had. And I was touring and stuff so rather than playing these records in a club, they were more played in shows, concerts, theaters, festivals. Sonically, it’s very different than a club, right?

What can someone expect at a Zhu show?
Well, it’s got to be the whole experience. I think visuals are part of it, it’s all balance. When you have great live music, I think you can rely less on visuals, you can rely more on, you know, the engagement and the presence of the artist. And I think that at a Zhu show really it’s just a journey. You’re going to get your visual base journey as well your musical base journey, as well as the people that you came to see. I think it’s all got to be a balance of all those things. Watching what Pink Floyd did on The Wall tour 30 years ago. Those guys are there and they’re playing great music but there was definitely an overall encompassing experience that they’re trying to create.

You’ve navigated the music industry in such an innovative way — how have you used anonymity to your advantage to get people listen to your art?
We’re in a time where everything is so saturated and everybody is putting out records; everybody can put out records. There’s millions and billions of records out there and most of them aren’t heard. The curiosity and mystery is lacking in today’s world. And this doesn’t even really apply to [just] music, either. I think you can find out all the information you want. But to really delineate what’s true and what’s not, the filtration system isn’t there. So, I just wanted to bring back the feeling of mystery. And I think that’s something that’s valuable because I don’t have that same feeling, 10 or 15 years ago, when I discovered something and it was completely new. And I was just crazy over something.

And when you think about before we were born, with bands like Pink Floyd, all you had was the album and the sleeve. It kind of goes back to that, when you’re really focused on the meat, on the art.
It’s powerful, right?

What did it mean to you to be nominated for a GRAMMY? Can you tell me a little bit about the track, “Faded?”
It’s definitely an honor. To make music, I think you need to have both the credibility of the fans and the general public as well as your peers, right? In doing anything, you have to do both well. And that means a lot because that was probably one of the simplest songs ever to be nominated for a GRAMMY. But maybe that spoke to the power of simplicity and, something that Miles Davis always talked about too, is that the space is more important than the notes. And that’s really true in my music too, the space is very important.

What’s next for you? Specifically, what do you want to accomplish and explore in the next few years as an artist?
Well, all artists have to progress and evolve. And if they don’t, they’re not doing it right. I’m thinking about the next record and thinking about how to integrate whatever sounds there is on to the show in a way that will be perceived from the audience in the right way. There’s a lot of interesting and very exciting things in the future. There’s many records to be made, so that’s exciting.

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