Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Jack White

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

Musician Jack White feels magnanimous about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Jack sits down with Conan to talk about his new album Entering Heaven Alive, running his own upholstery shop, what it means to pander, melding art and business, and pre-show rituals. Plus, Conan goes head to head with his team with a rejected Bond theme quiz.  Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hi, my name is Jack White, and I feel magnanimous about being Conan O'Brien's friend. So what you're saying is you are... I don't know the definition of magnanimous. Oh, whoa, whoa. You know it doesn't mean magnetic. Oh. It does not mean... Maybe I should try a different word.

That means I should try a different word. Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, the podcast that gives and gives, and asks for nothing in return. Matt Gorley, good to see you. Hi. Sonoma Sessian, how are you? Hello. How are your little gentlemen doing?

They're very good. I'd still sing them the little gentlemen's song. They like it a lot. How's that go? My little gentlemen... It's when I wipe their mouths. Aw. It's the only way they'll be cool.

That's a song? My little gentlemen. My little gentlemen. I dab your little face. Okay. My little gentleman. And they like that. Yeah.

I think I could sing anything, and they'll be like, yeah. Wow. A true mother's love for her children. Oh. Gorley was lovely seeing your daughter the other day. You know, I want to get the word out that we have recorded some summer s'mores, and we were over at your house, and I got to meet your daughter, which was really nice. You talking about Bill Squishman?

What? That's her nickname. What? Her full nickname is Bill Squishman Founder Squishman Enterprises Co-Founder Segal Squishman Dynamics Quality Through Cuteness. How cute. That is so sweet. Why Bill Squishman?

What kind of name is that for a girl? I mean, take a look at her. She just looks like a 50s businessman. Your daughter does kind of look like Eisenhower-era addict sex. Yeah. Yeah. I'm lost on my own podcast. I don't know what we're talking about now.

Our families. Our families. Oh, yeah. You had nicknames for Nevin Beckett, I'm sure, that were weird and interesting. Child one, child two. No. No, you come into a room and you call people chopper and stuff like that. Oh, I love that.

I love. So why can't you wrap your head around this? No, Bill, just threw me a little bit that you switch genders, you know, but I shouldn't because I know that everyone's gender flu. Modern times. Modern times. So your daughter is Bill Squishman, head of Squishman Enterprises. Founder.

Founder. Yeah. And head. And head of. Yeah. Title on the business card. Nice. What a lovely story you'll have for her one day.

What did you call me, Papa? Little snookums? Snackums? We called you Bill Squishman, founder of Squishman Enterprises. How do you feel in your new role as father, do you think you're a good dad or you would fall for father? I don't know if I'm a good dad, but I have never been happier in my life. I'm crazy about this.

It is insane. I love it so much. It took me years to start to understand this whole affection for children thing, my kids. Liza kept saying, get in there and try it one more time, just spend more time with them. I'm like, I don't know. What does this have to do with my career? Oh yeah. I don't see how this helps me.

I look at her and go, you can take me away from my career. I love you so much. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah. You say that, but you don't mean it. Once you're around them for a while, like more than an hour, that's when you're one hour. I don't.

You're a cold, withered dead tree on a hilltop, you know? You've got no emotion, man. You need to warm up, you know? All right. That's good advice. Yeah. That's good advice. I'm going to do that.

Okay. I think it's a joke. I love my children. I've seen you interact with your kids and you're very loving, tender father. I fight my son a lot. You guys do wrestle. I wrestle everybody. I love physical confrontation and I think it's a good way to get closer to people is

to fight them. You've never fought me. No. No, I haven't. I'm worried about you. One good punch from me and you might just fall apart. Oh, really? Well, it's true.

You know, look at me. I'm a big masculine man. Well, I was going to say, I never side with him, but you do seem a little, not brittle. What's the word I'm like? Fragile? Excuse me? You do. I mean, to be fair, you look like you're made of marzipan and you're a delicious treat

for the holiday. But. Excuse me? But I do think that. I was in the theater department. I'm sure you were. Okay. I'm sure you were.

All right. I have a master's degree in theater, so let's have some respect here. All right. I mean, if I punched you really hard, you'd explode into a bunch of pieces and then they would all fall down. You'd be this nice arrangement of Hummel figurines that would fall down and assemble themselves. You think I'm fragile? You're very fragile.

I still own all my Legos, okay? No, but you know what I mean. He is. I'm a guy who can take a punch and give a punch. No. I'm a man's man through and through. Well. I have an anchor tattoo on my bicep.

Oh, are you doing the arm wrestle? Is that what this is? Are you? The arm wrestle doesn't prove anything. I'm just saying. Oh, nice dodge. Matt. Nice dodge.

If I needed to, I could claw through your chest to get through you instantly. But I might just like right when you do that, I'll bust into a Shakespeare monologue. What are you going to do then? I don't know. I would love to do two of you fighting. The picture I have in my head is just this. Well, it's very quick. It's very quick.

It's a slap fight. I think slap fighting is a lot of this. I slap kick and bite if I have to, but I get the job done. That's my motto. Yeah. Well. Sorry. I called you fragile, but yeah, I mean, that means that you're not like a fighter.

Yeah. No, I'm not a fighter. That's a compliment. I'm glad to do this podcast. We found someone to sit across from me who makes me feel like a tough guy. Oh, man. That's what we essentially did. I feel like Ernest Borgnein over here.

I feel like a big bruiser. Really? Let me just take a drink. Slap. I don't know. Is that helping? Sweet chamomile. Yon.

Yon. Sleepy time. No. All right. Well, should we get into the show? Yeah. Please. You better before I get angry.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. No. It's not worth it. It's called cranky. You wouldn't like me when I'm... You wouldn't like me. You wouldn't like me when I get fussy. It's not the same.

You wouldn't like me when I'm teething. Yeah. My guest today. So thrilled he's here is a Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter who released his fourth studio album, Fear of the Dawn, earlier this year. Now has a new album, so prolific, entering Heaven Alive out July 22nd. He's currently on a world tour with tickets available on his website. Absolutely thrilled he's with us today.

My friend Jack White is here. Welcome. So glad that you're here with us today. You and I have been friends for a long time. That is correct. Most of the people that I talked to on this podcast are not my friends. They're not your friends or they're pretending to be your friends. Yeah.

Many people in this town. To make it in the business. Yes. To progress to the next level. Yeah. Climbs the show biz ladder until they've made friends with one. They've broken up with Konishi. Yeah.

But you and I have known each other for a really long time. Many, many years. Many people say your whole musical style was sort of based on... Okay. What am I doing here? No. Can we stop you before you keep going? Just lying.

You're just making shit up. Just not outlying. That's wrong. You used to as a child watch me on late night and then you said I could maybe use his vocal rhythm. No. Never. Guitar solos.

To as an example of what not to do. Yeah. Okay. Nothing. All right. All right. Well, maybe I went too far. And I do apologize.

No. You are... With so many people like Sona, you only think I'm cool because I know Jack. That's actually very true. That's the only reason you think I'm cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, think about your other friends.

I love them, but they're not Jack White. It's Dork Central. Yeah. And then there's... Then there's you. This guy wrote a James Bond theme song. I know. And you know him.

I know. I know. And you are, of course, the James Bond fissionado of all time. And of that movie. Yeah. That's one of the most divisive things I've been a part of is that song. Why is that? I mean, it's...

To this day, it's straight across the board. People always say, oh, you're the lover. You hated something. That song is... There are people who hate it so much and people who love it so much. Now, nowhere in the middle. It's so strange. That's like the movie itself.

I think... Yeah. The movie comes along with what people think of it. But Bond themes in Britain, for example, are like, that's consistent coffee breakfast conversation. You know? Like, what's your favorite Bond song? It's almost like who you are as a person.

You relate to which song it means something to you. It's really... I mean, it's great company to be in, though, when you think about some of the iconic Bond songs. Oh, yeah. Even... What's your favorite Bond song of all time? There's a...

The one that I think I'm drawn to is Tom Jones' Thunderball. Yeah. And I don't know if you know this, but Johnny Cash recorded in an attempt at Thunderball. This is crazy. I heard this. I just came up on the Jeff Goldblum episode, he was saying how much he loved Thunderball and I was talking about this Johnny Cash. Yes.

Yes. Oh, of course. Of course. Oh. Oh, dear boy. Oh. Oh. Oh, yes.

Oh. Yeah. It was while he was feeling all of our faces with his tentacles. Oh. Oh. Oh. Yes. Yes.

So it was a great idea to have recorded a Bond song. Yeah. It just didn't make it. It didn't make it. Yeah. Unsolicited submission. I got in because Amy Winehouse wasn't showing up to the sessions or wasn't delivering the song that they were asking her to do.

So it was, we're running out of time. We need somebody else to do it. And I thought, oh, this is great because now I'm going to get away with murder. I'm going to put things in this song that they would never approve of this, this section and all that. And that happened. It got to be... The music director was not down with anything, he was trying to kind of convince me to turn

into a ballad or something like that. And it got interesting, it was like, I don't... We're going on tour. I don't have time. I really can't get in there. Knowing full well, I'm like, well, I totally have time to fix it if I want to. It's so funny. My favorite move is, I'm sorry I can't, but I don't have time, and then that person sees

you at a leisurely lunch two hours later and you're clearly doing nothing. One of my favorite moves, and you know who did it to me once? Adam West. Really? Adam West. When Robert Smigel and I were working on this TV project, we wanted to bring Adam West back to TV and we were working on this kooky project called Look Well. And we had this audition with him with the network and they said, yes, we're going to

bring Adam West back to TV. You guys can make this pilot. We were so excited and we said to him, hey, do you want to go out and get dinner with anyone? I'd love to gentlemen, but I'm very busy. Big plans tonight. Oh, OK, Mr. West, no problem, and then Robert and I went down to the hotel to get dinner and we saw him sitting alone. Alone.

Alone. Alone. He'd rather be alone. Alone. That man would rather sit alone and he saw us and gave like a little nod. He wasn't even ashamed. You didn't think I'd really have dinner with you, did you? Not at all, Mr. Wayne.

We understand. Oh my God. You know, first of all, I want to congratulate you on Fear of the Dawn, which I've been listening to. Oh, thanks. Love it. And I had a lot of questions. First of all, the sound, it's a different sound than I've heard you get before.

I'm fascinated by this because I know I'm going to go see you perform tomorrow night and I'm curious, is it important to you to try and recreate that sound when you perform live or does that not really matter to you? I sort of try to keep a little like loose structure of what that is with the idea of opening it up and making it into something maybe not bigger or better, but at least different or interesting for a second. Another little path. But that can be hard to do.

Some songs you have to play it that way. That's just kind of how it's going to go. There's not much you can do to change it. Other things, if you change them, they become better and better and people kind of wish that what you're doing live was the one that was on the album, you know. You try to find that medium in the middle, but what's interesting is, yeah, like going on tour right now, we're on or maybe two weeks or three weeks into touring, I guess, worth of shows.

I don't know, maybe it's like the 20th or show or something by now, but they're so different than they were the first couple of shows, these songs, and there's times where it's getting better and sometimes it's getting not as good as it was when we first started. So you're constantly reeling in and casting. It's fascinating to me because your two things, you're a studio creature, you love being in the studio and you love the machinery. And I've seen you, maybe the coolest thing I've ever done in my life was when we were on tour.

You remember this song? I remember it, yeah. And you invited me over to your house. Yeah, yeah. And my mode of getting around was on a tour bus. So a giant tour bus pulled up in front of your very cool house in Nashville and I stepped off the bus and it went like, and the doors opened and I stepped out and I walked up this long driveway to your house and then you and I, you took me into the recording studio and

I had you take all your clothes off, which you said was for audio. Oh yeah. Now I'm like, whatever you say, Mr. White, how does this affect audio? I don't know why I was talking that way. It happens whenever I'm in Nashville. And but no, but I could tell you're just really into the gadgetry and the machinery of it and getting your hands on tape. Yeah.

I know you edit like with a razor blade, you really like to get in there and make stuff. But then I've seen you perform, when you're performing live, that's got to feel like a completely different gear. I mean, you're, it's a completely different, you're not like encased in your bat cave and figuring this all out, you're out there. You are you done? Fucker. No, I'm not.

Okay. Go ahead. It's your show. The cup says your name on it. And I guess my point is that there's a duality to all of us. Sort of a double nature. Is this where you guys showed me interrupt, right? Yeah.

You told me earlier. I slip you a note. Go. Where you interrupt. And also save us. That man is a yin-yang, if you will. No. Please continue.

No, but when you came in as a great example of exactly what you're talking about is when you came in to record, I don't know if you guys know this, maybe you do, but we were doing sort of a spoken word record, we were trying to do a recording and he came and he was just checking the mic and we were just setting the level of the compressor and all that. And his checking the mic became the record. He made up this whole story about Frankenstein off the top of his head. And it was so good. And it's the kind of thing where I always imagine when I was younger, I bet stuff like

that happens and they don't put it in TV shows and they don't put it on that. And that's the good stuff. That's the stuff they should put on there. And of course, that was the A side of the single was what you just did testing the mic and that's how talented you are and how you're able to ad-lib and make something interesting immediately. I thought that when I first did Saturday Night Live, they did how they do two hour version and they cut out 30 minutes of sketches.

Yes. They do dress and then they do air. Yeah. And then several of the sketches don't make the final cut and there was one that was like so great. Oh man, that was so fun. I can't believe that didn't make it the next time we did Saturday Night Live, the same thing happened.

And I was like, I got to talk to Lauren once and I said, you know, it would be great if you just hired a couple guys just to go through the 40 plus years of and find all those sketches and make together like some DVD box set of lost stuff. Oh, I don't think people would be interested in that. No, just kidding. It's true. I mean, I can see him shooting that, I mean, I can see him not wanting to do that because he didn't get, he was negative about it.

He was just like, yeah, but I mean, actually recently we've seen more like cut for time things they post. You know what happened and it's this new world we live in, but Lauren Michaels, when you think about it, Saturday Night Live starts, he's 30 years old and it's 1975. So the whole idea of lost tapes or let's get stuff out of the archive that's somewhat funky or didn't have a lot of mass appeal felt, well, that's, that's completely antithetical to what show business was when late night television started. It was essentially found space.

It was the equivalent of someone finding an attic that they didn't know about. And so networks realized, wait a minute, we've got this time from 11 and it used to be the tonight show, I think was, it was like two and a half hours every night. So you look at those early ones and they, it is two and a half guys smoking cigarettes and killing time, killing time. And so there was a, that affected, that affected what the vibe was and what the content was because you had, you know, if you had, and I think in a weird way, we've almost gone full circle because that's, yeah, it feels like, if you would tell me, yeah, you know,

whatever 15 years ago would, would be, be headed to an area where people would find podcasts interesting and listen to them. And I would have said, oh no, it's going to be way too much, you know, it's not millisecond changeovers and, and, and flash editing and blah, blah, blah, and hitting you over the head. That's what you would always expect that the future has got in store for us is watching eight channels at the same time or something like that. And you're, but no, this, it's a lot of ways people have done the opposite of what you

thought were going to happen, like this being a great example of it. This format's been around for a long time, but it's kind of magical at this stage to get to just free form like this. Yeah. The need for content almost, but from the whole world or entertainment or the internet has almost made things, real things become popular or interesting again, where people are actually working with their hands on YouTube rather than just showing some nonsense or something. It's, oh, this guy can actually build something or this guy can actually, actually knows what

he's talking about. Uh, cause I was, I was complaining years ago. I think it's, I don't know how many years ago, but I started to sort of feel like there's this death of the expert vibe was happening where it was say someone, if you're a musician, someone came and reviewed your record, you kind of had at least a thought, well, that guy probably got hired by such and such magazine because he's a, he's got 5,000 records in his collection. Right.

He's been to, you know, 10,000 live shows and it seemed like all of a sudden now it was some kid who, it was 19 who hadn't seen a live show three years ago was the first time I went and saw concerts and you kind of like, you know, where's the experts at where are they kind of going away because of the death of print journalism or something like that. But I think it's kind of turned around in a different way. Now you're seeing more actual experts getting the mic or getting on camera that know what they're doing. Right.

You know, I'm sure there's a million people trying, you know, trying to become famous or whatever, but they're, it's interesting to know that that format has not lent itself to people are now, you know, being able to experience that. There used to be gatekeepers in show business. Yeah. So show business was a very small club. Right. And if you think about the 40s, the 1950s, they really were ten actresses and if you

were in the club, you were in the club for life and we talk about this all the time, but I don't know who most people are anymore. I don't know who because I don't really watch a lot of like reality television or anything. So I'm constantly and the same thing with music where it's very hard to keep up. Yeah. I just went to Coachella, took my daughter to Coachella and I was blown away, first of all, by how much talent there was there, but also kind of blown away by, I should know all this, but I don't.

It's hard. It's way more than it used to be. I used to be able to open up like an enemy magazine or something in 2001 and I knew every band, every little punk band that was in there. And after a while, it's gotten so large. There's so many TV shows. There's so many, you know, things out there. It's very hard to keep up.

So there's this, all the advertising, because I've talked about this, but when I like drive down Sunset Boulevard cruising for chicks, but when I drive down Sunset Boulevard and I see this was taking your daughter on the way to Coachella, I want to get in the context. Say something. Yeah. She understands the deal. Oh, she understands dad's insatiable need to cruise for chicks. And you see a wanted billboard with your face on.

Hey, that looks a lot like me. No, but you see so many ads for TV shows and all of them have reviews that say, if you're not watching Governor Potato, you're not watching television, you know, Stanley Bobo from Whipwap magazine. And then you see another one and they're very, they're very judgmental. It's like, if you are not watching Colonel Squash Machine, then you suck and nine stars out of five and the demand that you have to see everything is absolutely insane. But there was a guy, Rob Stringer from Sony Music, the head of Sony Records, and he told

me, you know, it's funny, Jack, like back in the 70s, if you went, you could be a music fan. You could know everything. Yeah. You could actually know everything about music. You know, there wasn't a band or a release that you didn't have at least a slight knowledge of, OK, I know at least know that genre. I'm not interested in that opera, but I know that my uncle listens to that music and this

is rockabilly over here and over here is some jazz. But there wasn't stuff out there like, and it became a certain point. There are so many people in so much content you couldn't possibly know even 10% of what's out there. You know, like when we were, say, I was a kid in the 80s, you would not see a rock and roll song on a TV commercial. Like maybe when Nike did the Beatles thing, it was like, oh my God, our rock and roll song was used on a commercial because they needed time for all those people who grew up

with rock and roll to get older in positions of power where they were the ones deciding what was going to be in the ad and what was going to be that. And now that's gone to even another, obviously a generation or two deeper. It's almost what I keep seeing is like a commercial where they're doing like the fake, try peppermint gum. Like, what are you spoofing? That doesn't even exist anymore. There is no fake thing happening.

It's all like 90% of commercials are comedic or ironic. There is no actual thing to be spoofing anymore. You understand the points I'm trying to make in that entire model? Just pick one of them and we can talk about it. Are you done? The thing I love about microphones is when you get them right in your mouth, they get louder. I don't have a lot of regrets in life, but there's a saying, no regrets, and I've never

understood it because I do have regrets. And one is when we were doing our show at TBS, you contacted me. I had no idea you were serious. You said, I'd like to do the upholstery, I'd like to make you your talk show couch. And I was like, that's so hilarious, man, that's great. And then later on, you're like, no, no, no, I was serious. I would have made your, you would have made the, and I felt like such a, such a lost opportunity to have a talk show where Jack White made my talk show couch.

I'm looking at four upholstered chairs right now. It's not too late. That's true. Yeah. We should put you to work, but you were serious. This fabric, no welting on the edges. Sorry. This guy, first of all, you did an apprenticeship for how many years as an upholsterer?

Many, many years. Yeah. I started when I was 15 and I had my own shop when I was 21. Then that's when the real learning begins. It was when you open your own place, you know, because you're like, have nobody to ask advice about anymore. Right. So you opened your own shop.

Yeah. Did it do well? It did okay. Yeah. But it did only sort of, I was so strange with it that it was, you know, I was doing sculpture as well. So people were kind of, you know, I started, everything became an art form with me. I was feeling, you know, the insides of the furniture with poetry and, you know, the

bills I was writing in crayon, like it would be a yellow paper with black crayon and you owe me $300. And I would present it to them and I delivered a piece in the yellow and black uniform with a yellow van that was an old Detroit Fire Department van. And it was, people were like, what? You know, it's like, you know, people would probably have got return customers for it. Some of these people, but yeah, no return customers. But they would pass my name on.

It seemed funny because it always got just enough money from it to pay the bills. It was never any more than that. It was always broke even or less. Are there people out there right now that have a couch that you've put poetry in and they don't know it? Oh yeah, certainly. Certainly. Oh, right now people are listening.

This is just ripping their couches. Have you ever made like a leather quilted door? You know those? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've done those. Yeah.

Button tufting is called. Yeah. And yeah, button tufting asshole. This is the first time I agree with you. I'm coming up before I could say it. I'm an asshole for not saying that. I'm sorry. Yeah, so you did that for a while and are you, you're obviously pursuing music at the

same time? And that was kind of tough because I had a studio, so I was doing sculpture in there, like constructed sculpture and sort of carpentry based stuff and garbage picking and putting that together in a sort of hardware store art. I was thinking of it being sort of a hardware store art and working on furniture there to pay the bills. And then also sometimes I would bring a guitar in there too, but that usually was a mistake because I would quit working on the furniture and go and play guitar and realize, oh my

God, I've been playing for two hours sitting here. I should get back to work. And yeah, eventually that got to the point where the White Stripes got enough offers to go and play shows that I was taken away from the furniture enough that actually we started making enough money playing shows, which was shocking to us, you know. That was, yeah. So then I eventually closed the shop up, but I, but I kept everything and I rebuilt it in Nashville behind my house.

So I still have it now. You have, do you still do it? Yes. Do you still do some upholstery to just kill people? Oh yeah. I had a lot of projects during the pandemic. The first year of 2020, the first year of pandemic, I worked on nothing but furniture really.

And let me rephrase my question. Yeah. Do you take commissions on leather but not with clothes at times, at times? It's so funny because I have a very, could I ask for some more Coke Zero? Okay. What the fuck? Okay. Well, I guess this is now a restaurant.

And also just a bill when you get a chance. It's going to come in crayon. I haven't had a sugar in over two years, I haven't had sugar since 2019 or any carbs since 2019. Really? Yeah. Completely abandoned. What brought that on?

I was, I had no clue about the pandemic about to happen, but I thought that, I thought it would be nice to start the, is that Bud Light? Bud Zero? So you decided you just went completely off sugar and you've stuck with it? Yeah. And since 2019, I haven't had any sugar or carbs, really. Because you've been insufferable since you showed up. That's the thing.

I think people are starting to say, throwing candy bars at me. You walked in, you were like, hey, asshole. You used to be nice. Yeah. You must have moments where you've taken this crazy journey. Too seriously? Exactly. You've...

No, but I mean, I went to a, you and I went to a Dodgers game together. Yeah. And we're sitting in Dodger Stadium. Next to Kendrick Lamar, by the way. Yeah. I remember that. And then they start, and Bob Newhart was there. It was a coolly gathering.

It's one of those nights where you're with Conan Kendrick and Newhart and you're just asking yourself. If I had a dime. No, no. It was the craziest group. And so anyway, we're there. Are all four of you literally together? No, no.

We, we, we, I went with Jack. We went and it was such a cool night for me because we drove over and on the way over, we were like, oh, I'll play you some new music I've been working on in the car. And first of all, rock and roll always beats comedy. Comedians don't get to do that. I can't say like, oh, I did an interview. Hold on a second, which, which David Spade, and I want to play you a couple of tracks from it.

You know, let's, let's really boost the bass on David Spade's voice. You know, it doesn't work that way. So, but you get to play this amazing music and I'm like, shit, it is better to be a rockstar. So anyway, we get to Dodger Stadium. We hook up with our posse Kendrick Lamar, Bob Newhart. And I remember sitting with you in Dodger Stadium and they start to go, and you're just sitting there and I'm like, this has become an anthem that is ubiquitous in across the

globe. Everyone knows how it goes. You and it's one of the most famous, you know, licks, riffs, tunes ever. And I was just sitting with you going like, all right, this is you, you know, I think I started to make up lyrics about money's coming in your pocket, I am making some money. But it reminded me like how freaking freaky that must be. It's strange. Yeah.

So, my mother was a huge fan of the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy. Yeah, me too. I love that movie. I still love it to this day. And so he's obviously playing the character George M. Cohen and who had written the Big World War One song over there. And at the last scene in the movie, I think he walks out of the White House and there's a parade of soldiers singing over there and he's walking with them and we've got a soldier

next to him, James Cagney says, what's the matter, old timer, you don't know this song. And he wrote it and I think of that every time I hear that definition of sports broadcast or something on TV. It has the same feeling that it's not mine anymore. I mean, it becomes folk music when things like that happen becomes something that the more people don't know where it came from, the happier I am, you know, the more it just becomes ubiquitous. And I'm sure many people are chanting the melody, have no idea what the song is or where

it came from or why or whatever. It doesn't matter anymore. And that's just amazing. Right. And it's funny because over time, you will even lose your connection to where you were sitting when you came up with that. Oh, it's same. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. Or you guys probably banged that out and said, so quickly, we filmed it. Yeah, yeah. Let's go get a donut now. And that's that's the level of intensity, you know, we filmed that recording of that record a bunch. And that I know that song was just filmed for a minute because it was not considered anything interesting at that moment.

It was just other things we were working on without were way more interesting. And so yeah, you'll see that we saw the video is like, we should have filmed a little bit more of this song than we did. But yeah, no one ever knows that the labels didn't want to release it as a single when we were coming out with the album, they had picked a different song. So you just go to show you, even when you've got it right in front of your face, sometimes you still don't know because it's not about, you know, really, you can market something or you can brand something or you can push it or you can try to support it and build

it into something bigger, but you really have no idea what's going to connect with other people. Right. Well, I mean, I think satisfaction famously was like a B side. They were like, well, this will be some filler. And you know, they didn't even listening to it in the playback, they didn't know it's a fascinating phenomenon. I was going to ask you today, I just came across the word pandering this morning, I

was reading something and I kind of define it in my mind, what do you think pandering is in show business? Can you give me some examples of what you think pandering is? Okay, I didn't realize this was going to turn into a quiz, but all right, I'll go along with this. I think to pander to someone is, it's almost like you're not, you're abandoning your belief system and you're just like, if I were to pander to Matt Gorley, no, no, no, this isn't a bad thing.

But I would just, I would, I would, to pander to you means that I would subsume, let go of my own personality and just say like, does it aren't Bond movies great? Or just talk to, talk to you about things that you like and almost act as if I'm on exactly on the same wavelength as you, even though I don't completely agree. Is that? I don't, I think you're looking at it a little more negatively than I would. I think pandering is a negative word, you pander to the audience. I would think it's a negative word, but maybe let the, do you have a positive take on it?

I did, like when you go and like, when you were on tour in 2010 and you would take specific things about those cities, you were in a way, weren't you kind of pandering to him? Oh yeah, oh I'm a terrible pandorer. Well yeah, but I'm saying that, but you didn't, I don't know, I don't think you gave anything of yourself up. It's a terrible quality. We can hate what we do. That's not the question.

That's not the question. I think you're adapting to your surroundings and you don't necessarily have to give up who you are for it. I think you're just adapting. I don't know. I think it has a negative, I do think it has a mostly negative connotation. Is there a form of selling out involved in it too? I think a little bit, like you know, if you pander to the crowd and only played the songs

of yours that they are most familiar with and there's something about not challenging people. You're not challenging people when you pander to them. Because it's what you think they want as opposed to what you feel like you should be doing creatively. If you, on stage, on tour, for example, you know, show business rules sort of dictate if you don't pander a little bit, if I don't say hello, Columbus, Ohio, how are you guys doing tonight?

If you don't say the name of the town, even say hello. I mean, there are times where I get out and play, I want to play five songs without even talking on the mic, without even saying, I don't even want to hear my own speaking voice. I just want to perform and get into that zone and I realize about two songs in. I really shouldn't do that. I should stop and say, hello, Cleveland, how are you guys doing? Okay, great. And in my mind, every time, I feel like that's not me.

That's not who I really am. It's not what I want to do right now. And I would love to tell the story of being like completely, I never pandered to anybody or I never gave up my artistic, whatever I want to do at that moment. But I don't know, you can't really do that. You have to play a little bit along with the scenario, you're in your to play the room that you're in a little bit. And then I think that may be impossible to not pander.

You know, I always love when someone, when you just said right now, hello, Cleveland. And the guy in the crowd who's like, I flew in from Akron, you know, I've always been. And Akron. Yeah. I drove from Buffalo, you know, like people that just, there's people in the crowd who would take you, it's just like, no, I've got to make it clear to him that I am not, I've always loved the concept of a very articulate, specific heckler. Yes.

And we're from the excerpts, we're from the suburbs. We went to a magic show in time where the magician's trick was to, he could tell anybody in the crowd would stand up and say their zip code, because he used to work at the post office when he was younger. And you want to walk up and stand up and say there's zip code, I'll tell you exactly where you're from. I mean, my friends thought of so many jokes that we wanted to play on the sky. We didn't do any of them.

Mine was like, I knew that 48222 was the zip code of the mail boat on the Detroit River and that has its own zip code deliverer's mail. I was going to say I was from there. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. You strike me as the kind of kid that would go to like a Sturbridge village where they've recreated, you know, when the actor's there who recreate, so you go in and there's a guy

from the Smithy shop and he's there and he's like, well, hello. And what you always want to do is go, hey, what do you think this is? And you hold up a digital watch. I was the guy that wanted to do that and they always have to do the same thing. You can tell the actors are always like, oh, what's devilry is this? Yon device on wrist. Why you must be in league with Satan and they're just like, fucking go away, kid. Sit on today.

Yeah. Yeah. You're not the first to do that. No. When people play along though, you know they're good people, right? Yes. Exactly. So I'm on tour and this hotel, as you're walking out, it had some kind of old ticket

booth as you were leaving. So the exit, it was like, I guess maybe for a valet or something, but it was a ticket with a glass window and we were leaving a couple of us and there was a guy sitting in there and we're walking outside and I turned to him and said, two tickets to life, please. And he leaned in. That'll be 750. Oh my god. He's like, you're a good guy.

You're a good guy. I think about you at times and then I call you and it gets weird, but usually at 3 a.m. the morning, you're usually drunk. I love you. That would be a blessing if you said that. I know. I fucking hate you. I want you to know that.

I will kill you and I will never be linked to the murder. And then you're like, Conan, these calls are all recorded. Damn it. No, I've thought about how you, and I think I've been able to do it to some degree, which I'm very happy about, which I've managed to take my own eccentricities and build a life around it. But I've never seen anyone do it more successfully than you, where when you go to third man records in Nashville, you have, and I remember the first time when I went there and I was walking

around looking the way everyone was dressed and all the stuff you have on the wall and it occurred to me, you are, you're a villain from Batman. Yeah, I've talked to you about this, but like, I was like, where have I seen this before? Oh, right. The Riddler. The Riddler makes everyone who works for him wear, even if they're like out of shape guys in their 40s, they have to wear close knit, form fitting sweaters that have question marks on them.

And you know, you know that they were like, fuck, it pays well, the Riddler between, we have to, and he calls us Quizzle and Quazzle and Quizzle. But I was like thinking about, and then I started to imagine the FedEx guy and Amazon guy who delivered a third man coming to the door and it's like, we've got a, we've got a cuckoo clock here, but instead of a cuckoo, a Roy Orbison comes out and sings only the lonely, and instead of 12 numbers on it, it has 15 numbers and it's supposed to be mounted upside down. And the idea of you at the door saying, oh, that's, you must have the wrong address.

That's not us. And in the background, they see cuckoo clocks where Roy Orbisons are coming out and they're like, I'm pretty sure, like, no, I don't, I think you have the wrong place. I don't think I ordered this. But it was so, you've made, through sheer force of will and talent and just monofocus, I think you've managed to, I mean, you did it, you know, in the White Stripes, it's all about like the aesthetic. It has to be, this is what we're about.

This is what the look is. This is what the sound is. And then you just, I think kept doubling down on that in your life in different ways. And the result is now you, you've built this ecosystem around you that's really very cool and creative and populated with people that have to dress the way you tell them. Don't get the ideas. I'm just thinking. I think it's cool not to have to think about what you're going to wear out every day.

Well, I'm glad you said that. What would you put us in? Oh my God. You would be dressed as a little Dutch boy. Well, I'm hearing this. Hey, hold on, hold on, guys. And please don't be mad at me. Will you please do one episode of this where they have to wear what you tell them?

No. Yes. Yes. And it has to be, you can't know, you know, can I just give the parameters for it? Yes, of course. I think that you can't be, you can't know until you show up that day and there's no out, there's no, you can't say no to it. Fantastic.

I love this. Wait, what's in this for us? Nothing really is in it. You get to continue working for Team Coco. I mean that's it. We don't do it. We're fired? Yeah.

You mean I get to finally, of course you are. I get to finally quit. You know, have you seen Jack when someone shows up, when someone's in the background and they're moving an amp and they forgot to wear their little bowler hat? Guy totally loses it. I've seen him on stage, like he totally stops flinging songs. Flipping tables. Where's your fucking bowler?

So what? Well, it's 110 degrees. We're playing Bonnaroo. It's really, get your fucking bowler. What's Sona gonna wear? Yes. We'll figure it out. Okay.

But I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Oh. I want you to be dressed as a flower pot. Oh. The big flower coming out of your head. What? And you have to, every 30 seconds you have to go, I'm a flower pot. If I ask you a question before you answer the question, anything, Sona, how are you doing

today? I'm a flower pot. Pretty good. Been pretty good. The kids are all right. I love it. Okay. It's like a big...

You know, there's that famous Twilight Zone where Billy Mon... It's team building. It's team building. Okay. Yeah. I love it. It's team destroying. The women that work for Jack wear such beautiful dresses and outfits.

Well, he might choose that. He might choose that. Jack has a cool aesthetic. I come from more of a cartoony world. Yeah. I'm gonna come in with my phone. And I'm really big into degradation. You hope it's foam.

It could be actual terracotta pottery. There's gonna be real soil involved in your costume. I'm a flower pot. There have to be moments when you look at the world that you've created around you ago. Was this all compulsion? Was this like... This couldn't have been the plan when you were 20 years old. It was sort of like...

I think it came out of a couple of things, which was what I was doing on my own in my publisher shop, like I had described, which was sort of melding art and business together. Maybe it was a way of justifying the business part of it so that it felt creative. But obviously, it didn't work to a lot of people. It's the wrong business move to make because they didn't consider me a professional or took it seriously or thought this was like an art piece or something rather than they actually just wanted their wingback chair, reupholster or something. So maybe this part of that.

But there was also... My first band I was in was called Goober and the Peas. I was a drummer in this band. I was the 13th drummer of this band. So they had just gone through drummers like spinal tap. And this was my first tour. And they dressed like grand old opry cowboys with hats. The beautiful Hank Williams.

That was the whole look of the band. Like the nudie suits. Yes, like nudie suits. And every drummer was named Doc. That was your name. So I came in and I said to them, like, hey, I really like playing the music and all that. I don't really know about wearing this get up here. This is not really me.

I like country music all right, but I'm not from Nashville or wherever. I'm from Detroit and it's kind of hard to play drums in a 10 gallon hat and all these excuses and stuff like that. And I was like, no, I'm just trying to explain to me. They showed me pictures of the Grand Opry. This is what we're trying to accomplish here. And I thought, okay, all right. And I went on.

It's not my band anyway. I'm a hired gun basically. So I did that. And then I learned that it didn't matter what kind of music you had or if it was any good or if it was better than the other bands, whatever. You knew when you went to other places, if you were on a bill or if you were on a festival, this band got noticed immediately just because they weren't wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Someone said to me like, if you go on stage in jeans and a T-shirt, all the people that

are doing it are thinking that they're not wearing a uniform, but they're now wearing the new uniform, which is jeans and a T-shirt. And if you're doing that, now you're making the same choice that everybody else is making. 97% of the people on stage are choosing that uniform. So if we're going to make a choice, you might as well start thinking about what it is that you're trying to project and what you're trying to send, the message you're trying to send out to the world as a performer or an artist or anything like that. So that got me thinking a lot about those things as experience and time went on.

By the time one of the third man records was around, it was also making people feel included. Like we are all part of the creativity of what's happening. If they're in the art department or if you're a sound man or if you're working in the store up front, that we're all kind of working in this creative team in some sense. And maybe in a way it makes people feel like they have a reason that their voice is heard as much as everybody else's in some way. It's a little evocative of like Warhol's Factory. That's what I was feeling when I was at Third Man is that there's this idea that we're all going to contribute.

Everyone's contributing in different ways. It's funny that you bring up this idea of melding art and business because all I ever really wanted to do is make stuff. That's what makes me happy. I remember you telling me that you obviously got your new environment here. This is so cool that you're able to do this and maybe you're able to do this because you're under different constraints than you were and other things that you were doing. I remember you telling me when I think it was the Tonight Show when you got there and you just made a joke about having a marching band and then one showed up.

The budget was so much bigger to be able to just think of ideas and then snap your finger and it's there. There's an upside and a downside to it. I always think some of the greatest records in the world were made on two track or four track. Of course. And then the minute you give someone 85 tracks and unlimited time, that's how you kill a great. That can often be a bad move. Yeah, I just think that. But here's the example is there are different kinds of constraints.

You've worked under the constraint where you snap your fingers and a marching band shows up in the constraints where it's a sheet of your pants. We're all putting together a show like Little Rascals or something. Which is I assume how this is produced. Child labor. There's a curtain made out of quilts that you can't show together. Depression era children work on this show. We've managed to keep them, their bodies preserved. But you can see the benefits of each kind of constraint and the pros and cons of each kind of constraint.

Sometimes too much money is not a good thing and sometimes not enough is. No, that's why I mean the space that we have now here in Larchmont Village in Los Angeles is the only thing I have ever been able to compare it to is, well, this is my attempt to kind of have a space like Jack where I'm Pee Wee and this is the playhouse. And it's such a nice feeling. It should be due because I did some research on it and it's a Native American burial ground. We knew that when we got it. That's why you got it. We went out of our way. I said find me a Native American burial ground.

I've got major construction to do. No one's ever gone at it that way. Hell of a price. Oh my God. There's an island that popped in my head because there's this island by where I grew up called Zug Island if you can believe that's the name. It's sort of almost like an evil layer, gigantic fire coming out of pipes, rusted, you know, steel, you know, foundry building of some kind. And we were always with joke about actually the way stripes went. We snuck on Zug Island and took photos in front of a giant coal pile once because we wanted to all black background.

I was just reading about it. It was an Indian burial ground for thousands of years before it had been developed in the 1800s. Thousands of years. You ever think about cemeteries and like how there maybe should be more of them because of how many people used to live here? Have you ever thought about how many people used to live here? I haven't thought about it. Have you ever thought about people that you live with? Cemetery is number four on my list of things to talk about. Too many cemeteries is what I have.

You haven't written down. Too many. I thought there wasn't enough. I'm sorry, I didn't finish that point. Where the hell is everybody? There's like two cemeteries in every town. We're all on Zug Island. What happens is eventually everyone who knows that person is gone.

And then they dig that up. Yeah, it becomes something else. That's what happens. That's why I refuse to be buried in a traditional grave. Because I know that 15 years after I'm gone, no one's going to go buy that grave. You're not going. No way. Not a week after. Not a week after. No one's going there and then it's just embarrassing.

It's embarrassing to have a grave that's all weedy. No one's putting fresh flowers down. You told me you wanted to be buried next to Jim Morrison in that French cemetery. Oh, I've arranged for it. But anonymously. You can have a different name on that grave stone. Yeah, anonymously. What's the point?

There's a little stone that says not Conan O'Brien. Parentheses. And then an arrow going down. Yeah, I think about that all the time. This is an obsession of mine. This is crazy that everyone gets their own plot of land when they go. I think it's insane. I think we should all be ground into a power. And what are the legalities of it can never ever be sold or moved or dug up?

Or what are the legalities of you when you buy a plot of land to be buried? And is that supposedly forever? Yes, that's the whole concept. That's what they're selling is forever. But who can promise forever? It's a scam, I tell you. Wow. You're taking on the cemetery industry.

I want to be left nude in a field where I'll be found by kids. He wrote to me this morning, could you casually bring up the cemeteries so that I can finally get to what this podcast is really about? No one knows how this works, but I keep sliding little pieces of paper over to Jack. And the last one said cemeteries. And you're great. You just go with it. Do it now, by the way. Start talking about something and slide something else to me while we're talking.

It's so funny because we're filling in the debtor. Let's have a real conversation. I mean, gladiolas or petunias, I find them both interesting. One can smell better than the other. The fact that you know Bob Dylan and you're connected to that just incredible legacy of work and that you two have formed a friendship. Here's the problem though, Conan. Here's the problem. When you are trying to make a corn cob pipe.

Yes. And first you shuck the corn. Of course. You got to shuck. Okay, I love that I moved corn cob. This should be the new way that the podcast works is that I just chat and talk about you're incredible. I mean, the new work, Fear of the Dawn, you have another album, Entering Heaven Alive. I mean, you're doing fantastic work.

Vibrant artist hitting on all cylinders. What's the guy's name? I'm from Monopoly, Mr. Pennybags. Is that his name? Yeah, he's got mostly the Mandela effect where people think he has a monocle, but he never ever had a monocle. He doesn't really have a monocle when I think monocle. That's what came to mind when you talked about my new album. The problem is all these things you slugged to them are eventually just going to be compliment me.

Yeah. Compliment my hips. What? Your hips? Conan, your hips seem leaner than they used to. Well, thank you, Jack. I'm just sliding pieces of paper over. Tell me I smell like roses. You smell like roses.

Just two things you chose, corn cob and monocle. Yeah, those are the two things. So you're doing a show tonight. Yes. What do you have to do to do this show tonight? Because I want to let you go soon. I want you to get your rest. I know you were in a hyperbaric chamber for up to three hours before.

Up to three and a half hours, yeah. What do you need to do for this show to get into Jack White performance mode? These are some of the backstage requirements. A conversation with an elderly person. You've done it. You've done it. You've done it. I'm it.

I'm your elderly person. Okay, so I can cross that one out. Thanks, Gorley. How are you doing that, buddy? I mean, granddad. You give me the next one. What would you have for my, let's say, what you would hope that you would see on my writer? I would like you have to eat a huge heavy meal.

Like a lot of rich, rich meat, a lot of beans, a lot of sweet molasses beans, and I just, and you kind of have to eat all of it and you have a big bib on and it gets all stained with like the beans and stuff. A Monte Cristo. And then you have to go and yeah, like a deep fried sandwich. And didn't realize I was wearing the shirt I wanted to wear on stage. Yeah, yeah. And then you have to go out and give a high voltage performance.

And the fun is everyone in the audience knows, they're told beforehand, ladies and gentlemen, he's just had six pounds of sugary sweet molasses beans and he's had eight pounds of short rib. And yeah, he's had, and he's had 14 pounds of corn. Did you say that? You were going to come to tomorrow's show? Yeah, tomorrow's show. And I'm going to jump up on stage with a ukulele. Please.

I don't know when this is going to be. I never know. No one lets me know. It's long from now. Yeah, it's not a few weeks. It's not airing live. It's not airing live. You could give me a list of three things that I have to mention on stage tomorrow.

Wow. That kind of pandering. But yeah, that kind of pandering. We're going to call it reverse pandering. Reverse pandering. I love that. I love the idea that you have to work this crap in. Yeah, that's great.

And you have to work it into song lyrics. Maybe the paper before I go out and I'll tape it to my amplifier. Say it. Well, maybe he can tell you later. Okay. This is what I gave him. If it works out? Yeah.

Maybe I can't. I won't be able to work it out. Or else you just have to, at some point in the night, you have to reference Baron von Hindenburg. Okay. There in a way that feels natural. Yeah. Like, oh man.

I don't want to know until right before I go on stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're like, yeah, I'll figure it out, but it's going to be you just sweating and being like, man. It's hard to work in Baron von Hindenburg. Yeah, yeah. It's great to be here in Cleveland. I'm actually from Akron.

Sir, please sit down. I flew in. Before I let you go, I have to say that I, there are many things that I adore about you, but one is your guitar playing. I think it's such a hard instrument to make yourself identifiable on because there are so many guitarists in the world. I always know it's you playing. No matter what effect you've done, I always know it's you and you've got that very cool

sort of staccato style that you play that just always speaks to me like, oh, I know exactly who this is. Wow. It's, well, because I grew up being in drummer and I didn't, I avoided the guitar because I thought everybody plays guitar and just like you said, it's, it'd be so hard to be unique. And I think that kind of turned me off when I first sort of went to New York in LA when I was a teenager, I thought, oh, wow, this is like, it doesn't feel special.

It feels like everybody's doing what you're doing. There's a 7,000, oh, you're a drummer, big deal. There's 7,000 drummers here or whatever. So I thought, well, I should avoid that as much as possible. But then I realized it was kind of the only way to really, really connect all the pieces together and present it to other human beings in a way. I mean, if you do poetry, yeah, you will find a certain amount of people who will listen and pay attention to get something from it, but you'll find a lot more if you put that

to a melody. And if you're a drummer, you could connect to some people, but not really unless you sing something along with it or play, you know, so really the way to sort of connect with others with art, I mean, and music is you have to sort of play that instrument whether you like it or not. I think guitar or piano. And so I sort of picked guitar from kind of basically just teaching myself over the years when I was a kid to slightly how to play it.

I think maybe that has something to do with it if you're finding it unique. When you hear it, it's probably because of my disbelief that I could be unique with it and sort of giving up on that, you know, almost like, oh, whatever, you know, maybe this will just get tossed on the pile with all the other guitar players. So I might as well not even try to be as good as them or try to be as interesting as what they're doing. I'll just use it as my form of expression. And really, I want to get to the story and the whole point of the song is what I'm trying

to get at. This is just kind of a MacGuffin. So maybe that has something to do with it being you. I still don't know if I agree with you that it is that unique, but if you're seeing that, maybe it has something to do with those kind of ideas. Well, I do think it's your, the way you came at it is very different. And I don't, not the only person that says this, but you're playing when you take a solo and eating your rhythm parts, it's very, I just know it's you.

And I think so many people, what they really want to do is have a less pollen, be able to play very smoothly and get this kind of, they want to sound like their heroes. And I always think it's our failure to be our heroes and people I grew up, I don't know anything. No, that's exactly what I was just saying. You encompassed it. Yeah. We'll edit it.

So you said it. And I hear you, I don't hear a guy who was working necessarily on, I want to sound just like Jimmy Page or I want to sound just like this person or that person and have this really smooth, great. You, you figured it out. You hear a guy miserably failing is what you're saying to me. Yeah. You're listening to the sound of failure.

Your solo. Yes, yes, yes. This is it. We cracked it. You fail consistently. And by the way, why don't we get more people coming into the interview? This is the last one we had left. And so now we're done.

Yeah. We've alienated everyone now. This is what I say to everyone here. It's your failure over and over again, perpetual failure that's brought you to me. Hey, why is your guitar, why is it engraved Connie Stevens? Because you know what it costs to have your own name put in there? Too many letters. Yeah.

It's Conan's at the Connie Stevens estate sale again. Listen, I want to let you go. I want you to have a great day. Rest up. I'm going to come see you tomorrow. And I'm just, it's, it's a joy to know you. It's a joy to know you. Seriously.

It really is. It really is. It's great. I was singing earlier when you said that, you know, I think that you were the first well-known person or celebrity that I ever saw in public and went up and said hello to I don't know if you ever know. That's right. I was in an alley in Detroit and I was there shooting a remote and afterwards the, the

writer Tommy Blotcher and I went to this bowling alley and I was bowling and was in a Detroit bowling alley that had like a bar next to it. And the next thing I know, these like cool young kids, it was you. Yeah. Was Meg there? Yeah. Meg was in the next room. We were a bunch of the garage rockers were there.

Yeah. And for about a week I kind of kept kicking myself like, wow, I don't know why I did it. Why did I go up to him while he's sitting at a dinner table and said hi to him? I mean, I shouldn't have done that. But it was so nice because we, we got along, we hung out. Yeah. We chatted and then cut to like, I want to say two years later, I see that you and Meg are playing SNL and I go up and I don't remember you from the bowling alley.

Sure, of course. Because you were a kid. Yeah, yeah. And, and I remember telling you it's your failure. No. No. That will be a success. I said, you're a failure and that's going to make you a success.

And you were really bumped. No. But I came up to you at SNL and I watched you guys rehearse. Yeah, yeah. And then you came over and you went, it's good to see you again. And I was like, again? I have not met Jack White before. And you went, yeah, we met in Detroit.

So you reminded me that we had met each other and. You were wearing a monocle, I think. You were wearing a monocle. And I had a corn cob pipe. You were smoking. I had a corn cob pipe and very good. This is all very good. No, but it was one of the nice things.

Don't keep bringing a monocle over. You were saying, bring this up as many times as you possibly can. That wasn't the challenge. It says monocle times seven. Yeah, you do it. Monocle to the eighth power. Well, anyway, monocle, monocle, monocle, monocle. Monocle, corn cob, corn cob, monocle.

I'm going to have a corn cob monocle made for you. And I'll send it to your wacky house of horrors in Nashville. Jack, yeah, that was a lovely accident that we met each other all those years ago. And we've kept it going. And then you were kind enough when we came up with this podcast. There was one song I wanted. We're going to be friends. And you were like, sure, incredible price we had to pay every time.

You're living solely off those royalties now. You haven't recorded anything since. We haven't made a dime on this show. We're in the hole. We lose $600,000 a month on these shows. But I insisted on that song. Anyway, have a great show. Knock them dead.

Thank you. And congrats. Congrats on being you. You're very good at being you. Keep doing that. Thank you. You as well, man. And I love what you're doing and always have.

And we always say, all of our friends, you're the first thing that comes up. When we think of this is what we, when it was late night TVO, that's the show we want to do. And this is the way it should be done. And your sense of humor has got such a different take on it than all that sort of plastic stuff that was out there, especially all those years. Well, thank you. I just said, yeah. Sorry.

I didn't mean that. I got uncomfortable for a second. Yeah, I know. Yep. I always was better than everyone else. Someone finally gets me. It's true though. Well, you heard it here.

Conan, better than everyone. Hey, Jack, thank you so much. Thank you, Conan. Appreciate it. You know, on the Jeff Goldblum episode recently and today's episode, we discussed how there were a number of rejected theme songs for James Bond movies. Yes. And this is something that I guess is one of your orgasmic pleasures in life is talking

about James Bond movies. It's something that you know a lot about. I'm not putting you down. No, and I didn't even bring this up. No. And crazily, it came up with Jeff Goldblum and then came up again with Jack White, the idea that Johnny Cash apparently wanted to write and sing a Bond theme and submitted it and it was rejected.

Or just ignored even more likely. I'm not sure. Ignoring a submission is a rejection, in my opinion. That's right. But the idea being, that's fascinating that you think of, I mean, Johnny Cash was a genius, such a seminal figure and I adore Johnny Cash. The idea that he would say, he would submit a song, a James Bond theme and it would be, you know, thanks a lot, pal.

Just move along. Move along. Thanks for your time. Get that jalopy out of here. That amazes me. So, there's a rich history of famous musicians submitting and or being even requested to submit for Bond songs that have not been used and I thought I'd put it together into a quiz. I mean, you guys, I will read you the name and the year of the movie and four musicians

or bands and you have to guess which one is the one that actually had a song and you can hear these songs online too. Oh, the one that, wait a minute, the one that actually got the, oh, not the real one. Not the real one that was in the movie but there is a musician or band that did a real song and it was rejected. So, these are rejected. How many of these happened when I was alive? One.

Fuck you. No, sorry. No, I'm sorry. Three. What year were you born? 82. Three. Okay.

But these are not things that either of you, no one would know these things. He knows. He's like, oh, that band was like big in that time. No, I structured the answers so that that's, yeah. Just relax. I know. I'm thinking of you, Sona. There's no stakes here, Sona.

No, there are always stakes. There are always stakes. So, I'm curious. Yeah. I just want to be very quick. I think to be fair and the listeners will agree, you didn't set this up that clearly. These are actual submissions that were rejected. Yes.

Got it. And I'm doing this for the show and for you guys. I don't give a damn about any of this stuff. I'm not wearing a T-shirt right now with a James Bond reference on it. It's just like, this is a service. I don't care. I don't even like James Bond. Okay.

Don't you have a podcast about James Bond? Didn't you over COVID build a James Bond Aston Martin out of Legos? I thought you were heading for a joke and I actually did. No. But you did. Wait, you did? I did. Oh.

Yeah, he did. Well, let's do the quiz. He also built Sean Connery out of Legos. A full-size six-foot-one Sean Connery out of Legos. Easier than you think. Yeah. He made it. It was over 600,000 Legos.

But you don't like James Bond. Don't even know who he is. All right. Okay, the first... Again, just to... Sorry, just to ring in. Oh, my God. He never gets this right.

All we do is recap. Okay. One more time. Let me understand. These are microphones and we're in a... Excuse me. When it's time for us to answer, we say our name and then we answer. Yes, that's correct.

Because he never does that. And I just want to make sure. And he won't be acknowledged if he doesn't. So you have to say your name. Yes, thank you. And then if you answer incorrectly, you're locked out. The other person gets to answer. Yes.

Okay, let's go because this is riveting. Okay. You're so angry. You're like building it down just in case I went up when I was like, you don't care. I think this is boring. I don't even want to do this. Yeah, yeah. You're not a big huge James Bond fan.

All right. You built a Timothy Dalton at 600 feet high out of macaroons during COVID. Is that true or not true? I put a Timothy Dalton skin of macaroons on the Seattle Space Needle. That's right. Yeah. All right. The year is 2015.

Got it. The film is Spectre. Spectre. Got it. Okay. Now I'm going to read four musicians or bands. Ready? What are you writing down?

Just chill. Ready? Mm-hmm. Paul McCartney. Mm-hmm. Ed Sheeran. Mm-hmm. Arcade Fire.

Mm-hmm. Radiohead. Sona. Sona. Arcade Fire. I'm sorry. That's incorrect. Conan.

I'm going to say it's not Sir Paul because Sir Paul did live and let die. And I can't thank you. And I find Shirley Bassey did three. Yeah, but I know, but I just don't believe it was Paul McCartney because I don't picture anyone saying to Paul McCartney, thanks, pal, but take a walk. Well, and I'm not a James Bond fan, but when he submitted Live and Let Die, the producer Harry Saltzman said, that sounds great. Who are we going to get to sing it?

Are you guys going to have like a longer conversation before he answers? Conan, what's your answer? Ed Sheeran. I'm sorry. That's incorrect. Damn. Who was it? It's Radiohead.

Radiohead submitted a song. You can hear it online. Yeah. And they said, we're good. We don't need it. Wow. And I think it's, I think it's better than the, what did they, Sam Smith. And I like Sam Smith otherwise, but this.

I think I remember it. Yeah. Writing. Okay. The year is 1981. Just ask me thinking about you and I, we both have a slight musical bent. Yeah. Gourley, we should submit a James Bond song and try and, and I'd be happy to sing it.

Thank you. No, no, no, but just, oh yes. But we just need to have the title. We have to have the title. Yeah. We have to have the title of the, of what the, do you know what the next Bond film is going to be? No, no one does.

They don't even have the. But they don't have a title yet. No. So we can make. Sky's the limit. No. Sky's the limit. Sky's the limit is a great title.

Oh my God. Sky's the limit. Already rejected. Sky's the limit. No one wants to hear it. Wherever you go. Don't want to hear more. What can't you go beyond the sky is the limit.

Oh. We got to work on this. The year is. Okay. 20, 25. 2025. The musicians are Conan O'Brien and Matt Gourley. Yeah.

Okay. No. Both of us playing the zither. The year is 1981. The movie for your eyes only. We're in the Roger Moore era. Yeah. Okay.

Of course. The four musicians. Pete Townsend. Pet Shop Boys. Kate Bush. Or Blondie. Sona. Yes.

I want to say Kate Bush. I'm sorry. That's incredible. Yeah. I love this game where she just blurts out the wrong thing right away. I like to take a little time before I say the wrong thing. That's how quizzes work. You don't have a discussion with whoever is conducting the quiz and then just, you know,

be like, well, it can't be Paul McCartney and he's talking about Shirley Bassey. Like, what is this? This isn't fair. You have to answer. Whoa. I hate that. He just like cropped it out and deed you. I hate that so much.

Oh. Nothing fills me with more rage. Yeah. I don't blame you. We edited it up so it would come out faster. Okay. Beauty of it. People know.

Going to. I'm going with Blondie. That's correct. Yes. And it's, I think, better than the Sheena Easton one. I love Blondie. The song's cracking. What is the song?

It's called For Your Eyes Only. Does she do it like Blondie? No, it's a little more slow. It's a little more slow too. I'm feeling blue. I love that song. Okay. Heart of Glass.

Yeah. Heart of Glass. Okay. The year? 1995. Okay. The film? It's Time.

Yes. James Bond. Yes. Okay. Ace of Base. Mm-hmm. Depeche Mode. Mm-hmm.

Oasis or Blur? Sona. Sona. I am just guessing. All of these are just guesses. Oasis. Sorry. That's incorrect.

Come on. I'll go with the correct answer, which is Depeche Mode. I'm sorry. No. Damn it. I wanted to come in with a lot of authority. Yeah. But you know what?

If I'm going to be wrong, I want to go in. I want to play basketball with my brothers. My favorite thing to do is be way outside and say, nothing but net. And then hurl up a giant brick. It's my favorite thing to do. You know? Oh, my God.

Put it up. It's a three. And then hurl the shittiest shot anyone's ever seen. And it would smash a neighbor's window. I'm going to throw a curveball at you guys. No, who was it? I'm going to throw a curveball at you. GoldenEye 1995.

Is it Ace of Base or Blur? I'm going to... Ace of Base. Ring in. I'm going to say it's a quiz. It's a quiz. Yes. I just think it's too early for Blur.

It feels too early to me. That's why Ace of Base is crazy, though. That's crazy. Is that your answer? No. I think I'm going to have to say Ace of Base. He wants to see if you're giving him a reaction. I'll say Ace of Base.

I'm not giving anything. No, I'll say Ace of Base. Okay. So you bring in... Yeah. I'll say Ace of Base. The correct answer is Ace of Base. Yeah.

And you can hear this song, but they changed the title and called it The Juvenile instead of The GoldenEye. And they're not allowed, if you're an artist, to change the title of the James Bond movie. Well, no, no. After it was rejected, they wanted to put it out as a song. Oh, I see. I see. I thought...

I was thinking of someone like Cher saying, I want to record the song for the new James Bond movie. And they're like, okay, Cher, cool. And he's like, yeah. Well, anyway, the title of it is, you know, a bullet for the brain. And she's like, no, no, that's not the movie title anymore. Cher, she can do that. Yeah.

And now it's all about, you know... She can do that though. She's Cher. Whatever. Is Cher ever rejected? Not that I know of. I hope not. I mean, probably never in life.

Cher should never be rejected. Never. Look, already this segment has gone on longer than I would have ever wanted to talk about James Bond. Right. So what we're going to do is we're going to roll this over into a two-part career. You have taken your own personal obsession and hijacked, use it to hijack a very popular podcast and you've taken it down this cuckoo cul-de-sac where only you want to hang.

There's never been a popular podcast that used the term cuckoo cul-de-sac. No. Next summer, instead of chill chums, it should be the, welcome to the cuckoo cul-de-sac with Conan and his Quasys, all with K's. Write that down. Welcome to the cuckoo cul-de-sac with Conan and his Quasys. All right, we'll see you next episode, if you dare. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorely, produced

by me, Matt Gorely, executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solotarov and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Year Wolf, theme song by the White Stripes, incidental music by Jimmy Vivino, take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples, engineering by Will Beckton, additional production support by Mars Melnick, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode.

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