Song Exploder - Blonde Redhead - Penultimo

Episode Date: January 19, 2015

The band Blonde Redhead formed in 1993. Twenty-one years later, in 2014, the trio released their 9th album, and in this episode, they deconstruct Penultimo, a song from that record that caused some dissent between the band members. At the heart of the controversy was the Pitchfactor effect pedal by Eventide, a harmonizer that does a lot, or maybe too much. Coming up, you'll hear how tricky it was to begin this song, as well as finish it.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hurway. The band Blond Redhead formed in 1993. 21 years later, in 2014, the trio released their ninth album, and in this episode, they deconstruct Penultimo, a song from that record that caused some dissent between the band members. At the heart of the controversy was the pitch factor effect pedal by Even Ride, a harmonizer that does a lot, or maybe too much. Here's Blond Redhead on Song Exploder. It's strange. I went to the entire concept of this song, so I was kind of resisting it until the last, last moment.

This is Kazu Makino, the member of Blonde Head. And the other members are Amadeo and Simone Bache, twin brothers from Italy. I am Audeo. I play mostly guitar in the band. I kind of started with the arpeggio, but the thing about the Yiddentai pedal with which I wrote song is that it just by me playing one note it does the arpeggio so it's a harmonizer so he's just playing don't but the effect is doing no da da da da da da da da da da da no da da da da da do do do do do do do do so it was a bit by accident because we're not kicking on the idea of having something that was played with a pedal we couldn't call it a song without the pedal

I felt like we were taking sort of shortcut to slacking off or like cheating or something like this. So I was a little bit skeptical about calling it as a song. I worry, I censor myself quite a bit, you know, sometimes. But Amé is, he's not like that, he just goes for it and he goes for it until he's had enough. This album was, the whole thing had a rule of like, we wanted to sound timeless and warm. one of the reasons why we started saying what if we played this manually on the instrument so we started replacing the arpeggio with piano and harpsichord so I'm not a piano player so I had to do it first the left hand and then the

right hand for each instrument so I first did the she's the base and then I did the rest so it took maybe for so geeky can we do this manual What would it sound like? When you go into studio and making music, you walk away from reality and you start exploring things just because you thought about it, you know. The thing was the arpeggia with the pedal, and then the second thing was the guitar. And I play drums. I do a lot of doubling stuff when I record. I recorded the whole part and then we just recorded it again, maybe like a couple of times.

You know, and then we put it together. For that song, we got inspired a lot, at least for the drum part, by, you know, this Sweetwood Mac record, Tussk. He plays very simple. You know, it's really to the point. And I think we were trying to keep, you know, things very, very simple. I really like to be limited. You know, I think being limited makes you become more creative, I think.

And we left the song like that for... a few months. It was a third day of the three-day session at The Electric Lady, we turned to this song and say, well, this one only needs melody. Like, all you have to do is to come up with the melody and lyrics. And up to then, we were convinced by sort of the love that Amadeo had for this song. But I'm finding a way to me. I thought Amadeo was going to just deliver the song.

And he always was walking around with like a pile of paper. And then I mean was like, can you come outside? And then he just took me out. And it was like, can I help me? I got nothing here. It was like, it really a shock for me. It was like, what about all this paper? It's like, it's nothing.

I sat down and it just started writing down. And I had to come up with something. It was like streaming of my brain, basically. This is just one new yoke or whatever. Battery is tame. Not the way. After that, I went in and it started imitating me, which must have been so humiliating, because he always comes up with his own stuff.

This is the first time that that had ever happened, where you had written a part for him? Yeah, it's first time. Prepare to tell, nothing to see. Nothing to see. Realize, well, I could never do what Amelio does. I think he has such an incredible sense of, like, phrasing and rhythm and, I could never do what he does. If I try, I sound terrible.

Then that's what he had to do, was trying to sing like me. I think I tend to sing everything quite laid back. And it sounds like I'm not going to fit in the phrase into a certain space, but I always do. And he was having such a hard time doing that. Quit out turning round. When's your next show?

Should I even talk or hit him with the chain? He kept trying to sing this truck and I was quite touched that he had the perseverance and patience and also the world to finish it. The fact that it was for Amé, I was able to free myself from like, or the breaks I was putting in myself about this song. At that moment I realized that this song is like

right up my bloody alley. Yeah, I remember thinking, oh, wow, this feels quite right. And now here's Penultimo by Blonde Redhead in its entirety. A new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length. And this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh, Her Way.

I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists. And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine, rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat,

Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. You can find all the past and future episodes of SongExploder at songexplor.net

or on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you download podcasts. Find the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Song Exploder. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary, story-driven shows. Learn more at Radiotopia.fm. My name is Rishi-Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.